This is probably extremely social science geek of me but I was wondering if anyone knows of any resources out there (perhaps using either Pathfinder sales per city/region (or tabletop sales in general)) to determine rough estimates of gamer population density.
I'm trying to sate my curiosity on whether given stereotypes for high gamer density (i.e. Pacific state population hubs) are true. I have a thing for this sort of stuff.
Thanks!
Not sure how to gather the data, but "gamer" means a lot of things nowadays. Possibly, you run the risk of purely video-addicted "gamers" trying to chime in and add themselves to the count. So sales of rulebooks probably is a good start (though my wife counts herself, but does not buy rulebooks, but uses mine).
But do you include wargamers amongst the RPGers? Surely, a player of Warhammer or Warmachine, who happens not to play any RPGs counts as a gamer, too? They are, after all, also tabletoppers.
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One thing you might try is finding where Pathfinder Society events are being held. Put any US zip code in the search box and search for events within 5,000 miles. A Google map will come up that you can explore.
The last time I tried this a year or two ago there was a pretty high density of events roughly centered around the Wisconsin-ish area (go figure). Now it looks to my untrained eye like it more closely follows population density, which is what I'd expect: gamers are pretty much like everybody else.
One thing you might try is finding where Pathfinder Society events are being held. Put any US zip code in the search box and search for events within 5,000 miles. A Google map will come up that you can explore.
The last time I tried this a year or two ago there was a pretty high density of events roughly centered around the Wisconsin-ish area (go figure). Now it looks to my untrained eye like it more closely follows population density, which is what I'd expect: gamers are pretty much like everybody else.
Thanks for the reply :) That was my first thought but I was concerned that the Pathfinder Society would be just a small subset of tabletop gamers.
My hope was that there was some database of either gaming stores or sales for the industry. When I think about it though it does seem naive to think that would be the case (sales numbers are very sensitive I'm sure :)).
@Bruunwald: I'd consider wargamers tabletop gamers as well. I'd be surprised if there wasn't a correlation between the two groups.
Thanks for the responses guys! I really do appreciate it. I know its a pretty niche curiosity :)
A couple of other resources:
Nearby Gamers (site is currently down from botnet attack, should be back soon)
I use meetup for adding new players (in the rare event I need them) and for finding the occasional one-off game. You may be able to plot meetup groups by zip code. I think that the number of members of each group is available without joining the group.