2020’s Best Cities For Gamers

June 30, 2020

With the gaming industry projected to bring in $159 billion globally this year as more people stay inside during the coronavirus pandemic, the personal-finance website WalletHub has released its report on 2020’s Best Cities for Gamers, as well as accompanying videos.

To determine the best places to be a serious gamer, WalletHub compared the 100 largest U.S. cities across 20 key indicators of gamer-friendliness. The data ranges from average internet speed to video-game stores per capita.

According to the Pew Research Center, 72 percent of male Americans aged 18-29 play video games “often” or “sometimes,” as do 49 percent of female Americans in the same age range. And pro gaming, or “esports,” is growing into a viable career choice for those with the best mechanical skills.

Using factors such as internet speed, internet cost, video-game stores per capita, or percentage of households owning a computer or a smartphone, Wallet Hub came up with the following ranking of the best cities for gamers in 2020 (see full report here).

Top 20 Cities for Gamers
1. Seattle, WA		11. Washington, DC
2. San Diego, CA		12. Portland, OR
3. New York, NY		13. Atlanta, GA
4. Orlando, FL		14. Raleigh, NC
5. Irvine, CA		15. Pittsburgh, PA
6. Austin, TX		16. Denver, CO
7. San Francisco, CA		17. Madison, WI
8. San Jose, CA		18. Minneapolis, MN
9. Los Angeles, CA		19. Las Vegas, NV
10. Boston, MA		20. Sacramento, CA

Best vs. Worst

The report reveals interesting data, like the fact that:

Las Vegas has the most video-game stores per square root of the population (0.035371), which is 29.2 times more than in Boston (the city with the fewest, at 0.001213).
Virginia Beach, Virginia, has the highest average download speed (101 Mbps), which is 3.5 times higher than in Boise, Idaho (the city with the lowest, at 29 Mbps).
Gilbert, Arizona, has the highest share of households with a broadband connection (94.9%), which is 1.6 times higher than in Detroit (the city with the lowest, at 59.3%).
Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has the cheapest monthly internet cost ($43.12), which is three times cheaper than in Anchorage, Alaska (the city with the highest cost, at $131.35).