With this year’s video game hardware sales up 81% compared to the previous year, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on 2021’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 cities across 22 key indicators of gamer-friendliness. The data ranges from average internet speed to video-game stores per capita.
| Top 20 Cities for Gamers | |
| 1. Irvine, CA | 11. Los Angeles, CA |
| 2. Austin, TX | 12. Raleigh, NC |
| 3. San Francisco, CA | 13. Oakland, CA |
| 4. Seattle, WA | 14. Plano, TX |
| 5. Orlando, FL | 15. Madison, WI |
| 6. Anaheim, CA | 16. Durham, NC |
| 7. Fremont, CA | 17. Denver, CO |
| 8. San Diego, CA | 18. Atlanta, GA |
| 9. Washington, DC | 19. Portland, OR |
| 10. San Jose, CA | 20. New York, NY |
Best vs. Worst
- Las Vegas has the most video-game stores per square root of the population, 0.031378, which is 26 times more than in Boston, the city with the fewest at 0.001209.
- Irvine, California, has the highest average download speed, 89 Mbps, which is 3.6 times higher than in Buffalo, New York, the city with the lowest at 25 Mbps.
- Gilbert, Arizona, has the highest share of households with a broadband connection, 95.80 percent, which is 1.5 times higher than in Detroit, the city with the lowest at 64.40 percent.
- Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has the cheapest monthly internet cost, $41.88, which is three times cheaper than in Anchorage, Alaska, the city with the most expensive at $123.85.
