Do you live in a good gamer city?

[Cyronax]

The DC-NoVa-MD area is nothing to scoff at either. Its got a pretty vibrant gaming population that draws a lot of different types, including many colleges from the mid-Atlantic. The only problem I've found is that everyone plays on Sundays, which makes it hard to have multiple games.

I would love to find a good mid-week bimonthly game.

Plus DDXP showed up near us recently, so I guess that might be an indicator?

C.I.D.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

College gaming groups is another good indicator, but it can be a segregated community. Most outside people aren't welcome unless they are invited guests.

SUTEKH, at least, has always tried hard to encourage non-students to participate in our activities. I mean, I was last enrolled in 2004, and I was the editor of the newsletter in 2006 . . . we maintain a good spread of people from the late teens into the early thirties, though most of the latter are postgraduates or longtime members who stick around.

 

[Thunderfoot]

The DC-NoVa-MD area is nothing to scoff at either. Its got a pretty vibrant gaming population that draws a lot of different types, including many colleges from the mid-Atlantic. The only problem I've found is that everyone plays on Sundays, which makes it hard to have multiple games.

I would love to find a good mid-week bimonthly game.

Plus DDXP showed up near us recently, so I guess that might be an indicator?

C.I.D.

Yeah and on top of all that, with the exception of D&D most of the major companies in the early formation of the "organizaed" wargaming community started in and around Baltimore, MD, and a lot of them still are here.
Chessex dice (stands for Chessapeake)
The Armoury (Used to be HQd in B'alto now a subsidiary of Chessex)
Avalon Hill was originally from the Balt'o area but of course is now owned by WotC
Games Workshop is HQ'd in Glen Burnie, which is just a stones throw away.
And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Baltimore is proabably a little higher than ranked but overall I would say the list is probably the best bit of unconfirmed research I've seen on this. Without money and focus group studies in each of the cities listed, I would say its probably the best were going to get. Hagerstown leading the way though is probably right, there is nothing else to do out that far in Maryland.

 

[Cyronax]

Yeah and on top of all that, with the exception of D&D most of the major companies in the early formation of the "organizaed" wargaming community started in and around Baltimore, MD, and a lot of them still are here.
Chessex dice (stands for Chessapeake)
The Armoury (Used to be HQd in B'alto now a subsidiary of Chessex)
Avalon Hill was originally from the Balt'o area but of course is now owned by WotC
Games Workshop is HQ'd in Glen Burnie, which is just a stones throw away.
And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head. Baltimore is proabably a little higher than ranked but overall I would say the list is probably the best bit of unconfirmed research I've seen on this. Without money and focus group studies in each of the cities listed, I would say its probably the best were going to get. Hagerstown leading the way though is probably right, there is nothing else to do out that far in Maryland.

All that....and more. I grew up in this area and saw a huge influx of gamers during the Tech boom. I'm not as computer savvy as some, but I do know that having AOL and other similar companies around for a few years really helped the gamer population. The post 9/11 defense-contractor boom definetely helped as well.

Just look on Gamers seeking Gamers in this forum to prove the point. This region is sometimes about 1/5 of the respondents.

Plus this is the Living Greyhawk region of Geoff. That's quite a community I've recently found out. I hope to get more involved.

C.I.D.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Hey, that's what brought me here. (Military at that non-existant place of employment) As a displaced midwesterner it has been no secret that my overall opinion of hospitality on the east coast is just this side of assualt and battery, but hey, you all give great game.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

1 gamer in a small town (500 people) is .5% of the population

1000 gamers in Boston (aprox. 600,000 people) is .167% of the population

So even thought it is a smaller percentage of the population, I think I would have a better chance of finding gamers in Boston.

 

[MavrickWeirdo]

Hey, that's what brought me here. (Military at that non-existant place of employment) As a displaced midwesterner it has been no secret that my overall opinion of hospitality on the east coast is just this side of assualt and battery, but hey, you all give great game.

And that's how we treat people we like.

 

[grodog]

I'm surprised that KCMO was on the list at all. Beyond minis games and Magic it seems like my corner of the metro is a gaming wasteland.

QFT. I've been trying to find a group here for a while, and it seems like the place is dead.

You guys might want to check out http://www.kcguild.com/Con/ and http://www.sekgg.org/ for KC and greater-eastern KS gaming discussion/cons/sites.

 

[grodog]

I'm shocked that Santa Clara County scored as high as it did (37). I've had a terrible time finding players and games. Then again, perhaps living in Indianapolis (11) and Denver/Aurora (20) spoiled me.

Griffith Draognlake, if you're not familiar with the Critical Hit forum and Bay Area RPS site @ http://www.cilibrin.net/rolldice/index.php and http://www.bayrps.com/ you may want to check them out. Local cons include DunDraCon, KublaCon, and ConQuest (all have site, too).

Despite several stores closing over the past few years, the Bay Area remains one of the most vibrant gaming communities I've ever been part of.

 

[grodog]

From a demographics model, I would be more inclined to rank cities using the WotC pre-3.0 marketing data, and US Census figures. I worked up such numbers for the local Wichita gaming scene a little while ago, on our listserv:

Based on simple population demographics and the old WotC marketing survey, Wichita should be have at least 20,000 once-gamers and at least 10,000 active gamers. These figures are dervied from:

- WotC figures @
http://www.seankreynolds.com/rpgfiles/gaming/WotCMarketResearchSummary.html
- 6% of the US population have ever played rpg games, and at least 3% play once a month or more
- USA population in 2000 is 281,421,906 (rounded to 280 million)
- Wichita population in 2000 is 344,284 (rounded to 344,000)

Using those figures, you should be able to estimate the potential number of casual and current/dedicated gamers in each metro area.