The concept of metagaming honestly makes my head start to hurt when I think about it, because truthfully it makes the definition of what is or can be a game almost infinitely broad. It both complicates and narrows the lenses that gaming media can be viewed through in that it forces the individual to make a working catalog for what characteristics constitute a video game and analyze how those different characteristics can be expressed in non-traditional forms.
The standardization of metagaming is an interesting conversation all on its own. In theory, there is a formal “metagaming” genre of video games, and there are definitely some games that fit less into this category than others — both The Stanley Parable and There is No Game are prime examples of this. However, as we also discussed in class, there is a whole other facet of metagaming that manifests itself in things that we wouldn’t traditionally assess “games,” like specific advertisement campaigns and other promotional material. There are so many different levels to video game analysis that I feel like I could find a way to argue that almost any random piece of digital media is, in fact, a video game.
On a different note, one of the different ways of analyzing metagames that particularly resonated with me was the idea of complicity. Especially after playing both Braid and Shadow of the Colossus before, I’ve now become hyper-aware of mapping out the plot as I go and making a concentrated effort to put myself into the shoes of the main character and actively assess the goal that the both of us are working towards. In some ways, this is pointless because I’m still going to end up beating the game regardless — but it also fascinates me that a video game has the power at all to directly influence my thoughts and possible actions like that, which in a way is exactly the point that metagames try to bring across.
It’s interesting to talk about a standardisation of metagaming, almost as if a metagame is a genre, which is what metagames try and subvert! Through subverting standard genre notions, metagames have become their own genre that plays on the original genres in meaningful ways. I wonder what a meta-metagame would look like, subverting the expectation of the subversion, which has become expected. Would it go full circle and end up back as the original genre? Or would it do something new?
I find the concept of a meta-metagame really interesting. Especially as lines begin to blur further and further by what is or isn’t part of the game- for instance, could one go enough meta levels deep that critical reviews of the game were part of the game itself? What about a game that played itself and left the player completely passive, only standing to acknowledge the viewer or maybe left them a single “power button” style input? I guess what I’m maybe getting at here is after one has metagamed deeply enough, does the meta-ness begin to supersede the game-ness of an object, and if so, when does it cease being a meta”game”?
I definitely agree with your assessment that the definition of meta-games seems so broad that it wouldn’t be that much of a stretch to fit any piece of media within that category. I feel like I run into this struggle (and a seemingly opposing, but actually parallel one) all the time various areas of media theory – where a certain definition is just broad enough that it can encompass basically everything when it really shouldn’t, or when a definition has is just specific enough that it seems to disqualify everything that exists from fitting within it, even though we can clearly see that some things should fit. This can end up being very frustrating because it makes it really difficult to have detailed and precise conversations about anything without spending infinite time explaining, clarifying, and crystalizing definitions. But, taxonomizing is the only way we can understand things as humans – we need to categorize and define in order to make sense out of the constant slew of stimulus and information we are presented with. It almost seems as if a certain degree of fuzziness is required in all of these definitions to be able to make sense of anything. Maybe that is frustrating when trying to be precise, but sometimes it feels like words are simply unable to accurately describe an experience, so perhaps the only way to accurately understand the experience of a game is to play it (certainly not the most revolutionary statement, but its good to remember that we can and should take a break from talking about games to go actually play them every once in a while).
I find it funny then to say something like “life is a game,” and I think Albert Einstein may have said something of the like, where each person has to learn the rules of life and play it better than anyone else in order to make the most money, get married, or to achieve whatever happy ending someone sees at the ultimate value of life. So the idea of meta games can certainly be broad and frustrating when just about everything can be considered a game depending on someones view of it. But I think that maybe meta-games like the Stanley Parable still share the characteristics of video games enough to be considered video games despite challenging the idea of them and how they are played. Video games fit under the category of games but not all games fit under the category of video games.