Metaculture

Metaculture is a large part of gaming. "In order to bring a game beyond the screen, so to speak, players construct elaborate out-of-game meeting places..." This is done a number of ways.
The most common way games are brought out of the game is through online discussion. Whether it's the official game forum or a website completely independent of the game's creators, they are usually filled with posts discussing strategies, news, patches, and story lines of games. An example of this is a forum called Elitist Jerks which goes extremely in depth on WoW specs, gear, stat weights with large discussions backing each one. The dedication in learning the gear, talents, stats, and doing the math to figure out what's best is astounding.
Poaching, which is any activity where fans creatively re-use content from other media, is another example of metaculture. Writing walkthroughs is an example of poaching. "Walkthrough writers create a scene-by-scene re-enactment of the experience of navigating your way through a game, telling players what to do at each turn." Another example is fan made videos like machinima, which creates movies using the content from games.
Modding is another way in which players. We've already discussed this deeply in class, so I'll just go over it briefly. When players really love a game, they want more out of it than the game provides. Modders come in and help bring more out of a game and lengthen the life of a game. Warcraft III is a fairly old game, but because of the DotA mod, people are still playing and buying that game today.
Game tournaments are another example of an out-of-game meeting place. They can be professional, large scale tournaments or just small local ones, but either way, they help form player connections outside the game and are a fun way for gamers to expand the gaming experience because "serious players do not content themselves with just the game."

Would games be as profitable without the metaculture aspects? Why or why not?