Metagaming
How metas adversely impact video games
Nearly all competitive multiplayer video games that feature strategic elements develop what gamers call “the meta,” a set of theories about the best way to play. For example, in a team-based game with finite resources like League of Legends, the optimal distribution of those resources becomes part of the meta. In the card game Gwent, the strongest decks and how to play against them define the meta.
Metas add an interesting layer to gaming because they continually evolve alongside player knowledge and game updates. On the internet, millions of gamers discuss and hone meta strategies. Widespread coaching tools and advanced analytics help them improve their skills at an unprecedented rate. But because the ultimate goal of any given meta is to help players win more games, it can also obstruct potential avenues of enjoyment. After all, winning is just one reason people play.
Mark Rosewater, head designer of Magic: The Gathering, once wrote about Timmy, Johnny, and Spike — caricatures of the three most common types of players. Timmy likes flashy plays. Johnny wants to express himself. And Spike enjoys winning above all. Players are rarely so one-dimensional and the original example was in the context of a card game, but the concepts have widespread relevance.
Though Spike takes winning more seriously, Timmy and Johnny also like to win. But as metas develop, suboptimal strategies become less viable. Low-performing players who, without the aid of the internet, may once have provided Johnny’s homebrew strategies the opportunity to succeed, are instead lifted by the meta into relative competence. Metas make it increasingly difficult for players to win if they don’t make winning their top priority.
Metas also create toxic environments. As optimal strategies spread in the collective consciousness of a game’s playerbase, they become the unofficially accepted way to play. Players often enforce the meta upon their teammates — sometimes without knowing why. To them, it’s just how things are done. Metas are thus hostile to unfamiliar new players and to those who attempt to play in their own way; while to meta-abiding players, non-meta strategies represent a risk to their chance of success at best and intentional sabotage at worst. Either side may find the other toxic.
Players still routinely find ways to succeed outside of metas — but in team games, the longer a meta has been established, the lower the tolerance for originality. Player-defined metas can become so pervasive that developers may incorporate them directly into their games. Metas that appeal to spectators can steer the direction of game updates as developers seek to boost esports viewership. When Blizzard Entertainment failed to balance the first-person shooter Overwatch so that professional teams comprised of two tank, two DPS, and two support players would become the meta, it simply made it a rule.
Metas have been around since even before video games and have always existed to serve players like Spike. But thanks to the internet, metas grow, spread, and become established more quickly than ever — leaving Timmy and especially Johnny far behind.