METAGAME 2025
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A conference about game design, strategy, narrative, and play. Took place September 12-14, 2025 in Berkeley, California.

GAME OVER

Metagame 2025 has ended. Thanks for playing!

What is Metagame?

Metagame is a weekend conference devoted to games. We mean games in the broadest sense of the word: any experience that is designed to be played, as opposed to passively consumed. This includes board games, card games, videogames, tabletop games, LARPs, puzzles, rock climbing routes, and more. If building it involves asking the question "what would the consumer of this experience choose to do next?", it's a game.

This is not a 🟡coincidence, because nothing is ever a 🟡coincidence.

September 2025

Highlight Events

The Metagame Megagame

Every attendee will be assigned to a team, and the teams will compete across the entire weekend. Win games for your team! Strategize together in your secret headquarters! Become the greatest team at Metagame! Events that relate to the Megagame are striped on the schedule

The Night Market

7-10 PM Friday night

Open to the public!
The Night Market will be an opportunity to exchange goods and services with fellow game aficionados. Anyone with or without a ticket to the main event is welcome! Come and find booths based around:

Games and Puzzles
Indie TTRPG / jigsaw puzzle / 5-dimensional rubik's cube / escape room in a box! For sale! Right here!
Other Physical Stuff
Arts, crafts, foods, books, take-home items that don't fit in the "games and puzzles" category
Experiences
Try on a weird VR immersive bodysuit, get your fortune told, have a phenomenological time
Job Market
People looking to hire, get hired, or otherwise promote their company or self. Open for people on either side of the job market!
Black Market
Rights to middle names, tickets to cheat in your next RPG, etc. Black market goods must still be legal!
Information Booth
Like a poster session, without the standards
Other
Booths too weird to fit into any of the categories above!