Where are you? The hotbeds of tabletop gaming! [Top 500 cities in post #32]

Where are you? Actually, don't tell me - I'll tell you where you are. Not you, specifically, of course - but "you" as an anonymised aggregate.

"What's Morrus blathering on about this time?" is probably near the tip of your tongue right now. Well, WotC recently asked if I (along with, I assume, other large web communities of gamers) would be able to pull an anonymised list from Google Analytics of where the busiest towns and countries were in terms of traffic as a tool to help them focus their D&D Encounters and other efforts. Making sure they're taking D&D where the people are, so to speak. I figured you might also find the info interesting.

These are top 50 cities and countries in terms of visits over the last month. That's not to be confused with page-views (much higher) or unique visitors (lower) - it's the number of times someone visited the site, browsed for a while, and then left.

So, if you're looking for a hotbed of gaming activity, here's one list. Other lists may exist, but this is EN World's list.

As a side note - this data is completely anonymous. It just shows totals, not individual users. Nobody is able to look at it and determine where *you* are - just which cities have a lot of gamers in them.

[h=4]TOP 50 CITIES (visits - past month)[/h]
1. New York 14,199
2. London 11,702
3. (not set) 11,289
4. Toronto 9,597
5. Chicago 8,175
6. Melbourne 7,998
7. Seattle 7,147
8. Sydney 6,279
9. Montreal 5,166
10. Athens 5,153
11. Portland 5,062
12. Houston 4,979
13. Los Angeles 4,896
14. Bethesda 4,829
15. Minneapolis 4,760
16. Brisbane 4,433
17. Columbus 4,389
18. San Francisco 4,372
19. Washington 3,625
20. Vancouver 3,549
21. Ottawa 3,419
22. Dallas 3,345
23. Boston 3,341
24. Auckland 3,316
25. Austin 3,211
26. San Diego 3,196
27. Philadelphia 3,172
28. Denver 3,157
29. Edmonton 2,947
30. Rome 2,877 %
31. Singapore 2,851
32. Perth 2,630
33. Paris 2,629
34. Winnipeg 2,609
35. Calgary 2,584
36. Copenhagen 2,429
37. Madison 2,425
38. Sacramento 2,421
39. Zagreb 2,365
40. Milan 2,359
41. St Louis 2,321
42. Atlanta 2,317
43. San Antonio 2,311
44. Rio de Janeiro 2,284
45. Helsinki 2,208
46. Indianapolis 2,190
47. Phoenix 2,110
48. Las Vegas 2,076
49. San Jose 1,928
50. Madrid 1,907

[h=4]TOP 50 COUNTRY/TERRITORY (visits - past month)[/h]
1. United States 517,986
2. Canada 72,060
3. United Kingdom 51,309
4. Australia 26,069
5. Germany 20,564
6. Italy 15,986
7. Brazil 13,032
8. Netherlands 9,319
9. France 8,780
10. Spain 8,743
11. Greece 7,435
12. Sweden 7,377
13. Denmark 7,048
14. New Zealand 6,535
15. (not set) 6,421
16. Finland 5,926
17. Japan 5,311
18. Poland 5,027
19. Norway 4,711
20. Philippines 4,168
21. Russia 3,563
22. Belgium 3,109
23. Argentina 3,067
24. Mexico 2,931
25. Singapore 2,869
26. Croatia 2,816
27. Ireland 2,718
28. Israel 2,291
29. South Korea 2,188
30. India 2,140
31. South Africa 1,975
32. Austria 1,964
33. Switzerland 1,920
34. Hungary 1,815
35. Turkey 1,798
36. Serbia 1,509
37. China 1,400
38. Portugal 1,356
39. Malaysia 1,242
40. Romania 1,189
41. Iceland 1,179
42. Czech Republic 1,132
43. Chile 1,050
44. Ukraine 972
45. Taiwan 869
46. Indonesia 824
47. Hong Kong 711
48. Bulgaria 703
49. Peru 652
50. Slovenia 642

 

[KesselZero]

Take note that Toronto is Number 3!!! (not including "not set" which is a nothing category, and likely means more Torontonians)

Reminds me of the time I visited Toronto and went to a comic book store, only to be politely told that the manager had to lock up the store for half an hour to go to the bank. So we went out on the sidewalk and promptly saw an even bigger, better comic store across the street. (Silver Snail, I think it was called?) Won my heart that day. Awesome city.

I'm surprised (pleasantly) that Winnipeg rates so highly.

I love Winnipeg. Lotsa pretty girls, and now I find out it's some sort of gamer mecca? Well done.

 

[Nagol]

<snip>


And out of curiosity, my Province:
29. Edmonton 1:393
34. Winnipeg 1:279
35. Calgary 1:470
Which does not surprise me as I've always been impressed by the number of game stores and comic stores in my region and surprised at how uncommon they are elsewhere.

Adding up the totals (excluding Washington, San Francisco, LA, and Chicago) the average per captia is 1 in 562.

In what universe are Winnipeg and Calgary in the same province? Can I visit?

 

[Agamon]

In what universe are Winnipeg and Calgary in the same province? Can I visit?

Risk? Shadowrun?

It's probably a universe that T.O. isn't at the center...

 

[Jester David]

In what universe are Winnipeg and Calgary in the same province? Can I visit?

Oops.
I edited & added Winterpeg after someone from there mentioned the popularity of gaming there and forgot to tweak the previous lines.

 

[Stormonu]

"If there is a bright center of gaming, I'm in the land farthest from it"

Mississippi seems such a wasteland of gaming.

 

[RenaissanceDork]

Edmontonian myself. Seen a few stores in Calgary but there's quite a few here. Was a lot of strong LG/LFR support in both for a while. And we had a bit of PFS until recently, but that seems to have died.

Actually, I'll step in here. Hi, I'm Brent Jans, the Venture-Captain for PFS in Edmonton. While Pathfinder Organized Play did take a dip in the last while, it is currently growing, not dying. A weekly PFS night runs at Mission: Fun & Games in St. Albert (an Edmonton commuter community), a bi-weekly game is starting in December at a downtown University campus, and very soon we'll be up and running at Quantum Comics. In addition, plans are underway for PFS events in more adult venues, and I'm waiting for word from a few local micro-breweries for possible hosting.

So we aren't huge (yet), but we aren't dying either. If you want to join in and help, or just want to ask questions, contact me at pfsedmontonVC@gmail.com. I'm always happy to help with anything PFS related, and I can even run private games for you and your friends (with enough notice, of course).

For more information about PFS in Edmonton and Alberta, check us out on Facebook, or follow us on Twitter (@EdmontonPFS).

Hope to see some of you at the tables!

 

[Starfox]

About Europe: ENworld has always been very DnD focused, and Europe has a homegrown game industry with its own games, most of which only have a large audience in one language. Very fragmented, yes, and no reason to go to ENworld.

Which of course makes this poll more interesting to WotC, not less. What they want is DnD players.

 

[francisca]

I'm surprised Colombus, OH doesn't rate higher, just based on Crothian all by himself.

 

[LightPhoenix]

I rejected "Bethesda" as the two towns I can see with the name are small, and unlikely to easily support that number of gamers unless there is a few really dedicated folk which skew the average.

Since I didn't see this answered: it refers to Bethesda, MD, which interestingly is not a town, city, or whatever (it's a "census designated place"... basically a vague area). Realistically, the numbers for Bethesda should probably be folded into Washington, DC as it's part of metropolitan DC. This moves DC on par with the larger cities as far as raw numbers go.

 

[Scotley]

"If there is a bright center of gaming, I'm in the land farthest from it"

Mississippi seems such a wasteland of gaming.

I feel your pain, not much happening up the road in west Tennessee either.