There are cities that have, at one point or another, been the destination par excellance when it comes to gaming. For years Lake Geneva, Wisconsin was such a place, what with it being the birthplace of D&D, TSR and Gen Con (a worthy pedigree by anyone’s reckoning), but these days, the nexus of gaming has moved further west, the mantle passed to a new city. My vote for Best Gamer City goes to Seattle, Washington.
Located in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, the Emerald City has become in the last decade or so the new center of hobby gaming in the nation (and worldwide, perhaps?). Seattle is home to the mothership of hobby gaming companies, Wizards of the Coast, as well as to a number of the bigger “smaller” companies, such as Paizo Publishing, Green Ronin Publishing, Privateer Press, Open Design/Kobold Quarterly (and up to recently, WizKids), as well as a couple of small, indie suits like TAO Games and One Seven Design Studio, makers of Agon. To this add yearly geeky/gaming events such as Penny Arcade Expo, Norwescon, ConQuest NW, GoPlay Northwest and PaizoCon and you got quite a few places to take out all that locally-produced gaming goodness out for a spin. Sprinkle in those Seattle-based podcasts, like Stabbing Contest, Atomic Array, Open Design Podcast, Green Ronin Podcast, and Seattle Geekly Podcast (what other city has its own weekly geek-cast, I ask?) and serve with a side-dish of cool geek attractions like the Experience Music Project/Science Fiction Museum, the Space Needle (for that retro-futuristic touch) and nearby Snoqualmie, aka Twin Peaks. If you want more, consider that Seattle is also home to uber-nerd companies like Microsoft and Adobe, as well as to a number of small computer game studios like Flying Lab Software, makers of Pirates of the Burning Sea.
I would love to my vote to my home city of Miami Beach, but the simple truth is that for all the reasons outlined above and more, Seattle, Washington is the Best Gamer City.
What do you think? Do you agree or do you have another contender? Let me know in the comments.
While it might not boast any game companies, Denver is seen as a role-playing Mecca to many. I even know folks from Seattle that come to Denver twice a year to game! We have a great tradition of high-quality convention RPGs with the best GMs anywhere. How do we know they’re the best? We have training classes and GM rating sheets at every game table. Players from Denver that go game at Gencon are usually disappointed.
Scott, are there clubs and such that foment this Awesome GM factory? What about local cons and such? What do you think contributes to this level of excellence?
Absoultely! There are two pretty big cons (Genghis used to be the biggest in the country in February) and two RPG community groups that actively work to make gaming and GMing better in Denver. I’ve been part of both those organizations and active in the cons, so I’m not unbiased by any means. But over the years I’ve seen many friends return to Denver to game after they’ve moved away and even some new people that chose to live in Denver because they heard all about the great gaming scene (and presumably there were job opportunities as well).
The tenletter blog has posted a counterpoint, The Worst Gamer City in the World:
http://tenletter.wordpress.com/2009/06/26/the-worst-gamer-city-in-the-world/
Interesting read.
[...] This post was inspired by the Gamer Traveler’s post about the best gamer city. [...]