[leetbulb]

The game being PvP is not relevant. PvP games have a goal, beat the other player(s) or team(s). Factorio has a goal, launch as many rockets as you can. Not to mention, within the community or your own imagination there are an infinite amount of niche game styles encompassing goals of their own. For example: speed runs, smallest footprint, highest efficiency, most advanced automation, most chaotic pipes, CPU design, actual PvP mode (yes it does have PvP, but in the spirit of my argument I'll ignore this)...the list goes on and on, and permutations of all of the above.

Regardless of the goal you choose, you're competing, expanding knowledge, and defining standards with yourself and/or the community in some way, be it by playing co-op mode or sharing your results / optimizations / innovations on forums. Similar to PvP games, reaching that goal requires extremely nuanced strategic planning and making tactical decisions, even before starting the game, drawing from personal and/or community experience, understanding and adapting to game patches that may affect strategies, etc.

Regarding "meta" vs "metagame," I still assert the former is simply shorthand for the latter.