The Biggest Videogame Spenders Live in New York

Report shows seven of the top 50 cities in the U.S. that spend the most on games are in New York.

Concentrations of gamers is not a concept that I’d considered much. Now that I think about it, it makes sense that the per capita spending on videogames is higher near college campuses, but then you could also argue the kids probably do most game purchasing at home rather than when they are supposed to be spending money on liquid to fill red cups. If you really wanted to find out where people buy the most games, you’d need to collect information from every retail store and put it on map. Luckily, that’s exactly what the startup business Bundle did by collecting anonymous spending reports from credit cards and GameStops across the nation. The community that spends the most money on videogames is Huntington, New York spending 4.08 times the national average, followed closely by nearby North Hempstead at 2.32.

“We established our rankings by looking at average transactions at game merchants GameStop, Steam and EBGames in the top 100 cities in the U.S. from July 2010 to June 2011,” Bundle reported on its methodology. “Data is based on millions of anonymized spending transactions from the U.S. government, Citi and other third party data providers.”

There are several bits of information missing from this report. I’d like to know what the percentage of the sales were from new games as opposed to used. These numbers also ignore the growing downloadable market, which anecdotally I’ve found most gamers use when purchasing PC titles. So is this map a comprehensive snapshot of games purchasing across the United States? No.

But it sure is fun to scan the list of top 50 cities looking for your town. I went down with my finger and wasn’t surprised to see Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina enter in at #40 and #43. The Triangle area is not only where the office of The Escapist resides but also a large number of developers like Epic Games and Insomniac call the area home.

Here is the full list, for your viewing pleasure. Is your town on it?

1. Huntington, New York
2. North Hempstead, New York
3. Laredo, Texas
4. Chesapeake, Virginia
5. Modesto, California
6. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
7. El Paso, Texas
8. Cincinnati, Ohio
9. Buffalo, New York
10. Virginia Beach, Virginia
11. Rochester, New York
12. Birmingham, Alabama
13. Miami, Florida
14. Honolulu, Hawaii
15. Toledo, Ohio
16. Baton Rouge, Louisiana
17. Corpus Christi, Texas
18. Plano, Texas
19. Fresno, California
20. St. Louis, Missouri
21. San Antonio, Texas
22. Wichita, Kansas
23. Montgomery, Alabama
24. Tulsa, Oklahoma
25. Hialeah, Florida
26. Riverside, California
27. Lubbock, Texas
28. San Bernardino, California
29. Fort Worth, Texas
30. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
31. Fort Wayne, Indiana
32. Bakersfield, California
33. Lexington-Fayette, Kentucky
34. Chula Vista, California
35. Albuquerque, New Mexico
36. Akron, Ohio
37. Jacksonville, Florida
38. Greensboro, North Carolina
39. Tucson, Arizona
40. Raleigh, North Carolina
41. Stockton, California
42. Arlington, Texas
43. Durham, North Carolina
44. Long Beach, California
45. Chandler, Arizona
46. Lincoln, Nebraska
47. Anchorage, Alaska
48. New York, New York
49. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
50. Aurora, Colorado

Source: Bundle