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The best US city for gamers might surprise you

Ready, player one? You can game anywhere, but the WalletHub personal-finance site ranks the 100 largest US cities using game-related statistics.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper

You can get your game on anywhere these days, from a rural town to an overflowing city. But personal-finance site WalletHub used game-centric criteria to rank major US cities on a scale of 1 to 100, and the top city isn't all that predictable.

The site examined the 100 biggest American cities using such statistics as number of video game stores, highest internet speed, and most arcades per capita.

The No. 1 city for gamers? Sorry, Silicon Valley: It's Orlando, Florida, which came in tops for gaming environment, second for gamer and development opportunities -- but 53rd for internet quality and coverage. Being a terrific tourist town, Orlando also scored high for number of arcades -- gotta do something on those days when you don't feel like hitting a theme park.

Source: WalletHub

The No. 2 city is less surprising: Seattle. As a resident, I'm not shocked -- there's a great game store/cafe four minutes from my house, numerous friends work for game companies, and I had to scramble last week to snatch up tickets to gaming event PAX West, which takes place here over Labor Day weekend.

Austin, Texas, came in third, New York fourth, and Atlanta fifth. You can check out your favorite big city on the interactive map embedded above, or on the full list on the WalletHub site.

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