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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 5481178" data-attributes="member: 59082">I'm talking about cities, towns, villages, hamlets, etc. It seems that some places are RPG "hot spots" with tons of gamers, a fair share of game stores, and a lot of Geek Culture, while other locations aren't so great. Obviously population has something to do with it but there are other factors. For instance, it has seemed to me that therI'm looking both at total interest but also per capita. What towns have a large number of gamers? And what towns have a high ratio of gamers per capita? There is no easy way to make this judgment but I do think game stores have something to do with it - a thriving, well stocked, friendly game store usually indicates that there are a large number of dedicated gamers around.What I'd like to see happen with this thread is people listing places that they have lived and describing them in the Cold-Cool-Moderate-Warm-Hot spectrum, as well as some discussion about the phenomena of different places having different gaming cultures (and "densities") and whether there are any meaningful generalities that can be made. Some spots, hot and cold...Obviously Seattle is a major gamer hot spot at least partially due to Wizards of the Coast being there, but it also seems that a decent number of game designers live there. Just down the road is Portland, OR, which seems to have a healthy gamer population and a few good game stores, including Powells' excellent game selection.The midwest in general, in particular Ohio, seems to have a high gamer ratio per capita. I haven't spent much time in the midwest but it seems that a lot of folks are from there, not to mention GenCon.I currently live in southern New Hampshire which seems to be a cold spot. The closest game store is about 20 minutes away but it is pretty poor; there are a couple about 45 minutes away which are decent, but you really have to go to Boston (Cambridge, actually) to get a good game store (Pandemonium), which is almost an hour and a half away.I also lived in Colorado in the Boulder-Denver area. Boulder used to have a bunch of game stores but I think they've all dwindled away as yuppy culture has taken over (it also may be that its game stores thrived when all game stores thrived, back in the 80s and early 90s). Denver has a few good stores, in particular the excellent Black & Read, although I'm not sure how the gaming population is.I also lived in Burlington, VT, which has nice game store in Quarterstaff games and, I think, a healthy gaming population.So my known locations are:Seattle, WA: HotPortland, OR: HotBoulder, CO: CoolDenver, CO: WarmSouthern NH: ColdBoston/Cambridge, MA: Warm-HotOhio in general: HotBurlington, VT: WarmFeel free to disagree with my "ratings" - these are just my impressions.</blockquote>

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