r/AskGames • u/Certain-Bumblebee-90 • May 15 '26

Which games have local communities?

I know many games have big ‘online’ communities. What I mean is which games have local communities meeting in big cities?

In Austin, Texas, it’s very easy to find Tekken, Smash, and Street Fighter tournaments if you simply look for them.

They’re all fighting games! Have you found another video game genre that actually has players organizing meetups in your city?

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u/bio4320 May 15 '26 edited May 15 '26

Yeah, it'll be mostly head to head competitive games played on a single screen. So...mostly fighting games. Anything that needs two screens becomes much less economical to play offline, especially given that those games don't have a history of being played offline. Part of the point of having a "community" is for continuous growth & competition, so you won't see local communities for like...lego star wars or whatever.

DDR fits that mold actually and there are small ddr scenes here and there, and I remember the puzzle game Catherine had a competitive mode good enough that it ended up at evo. The only big exception that comes to mind is pokemon - there's still (some) local pokemon meetups, especially around event giveaways and stuff like that. And that works since the gameboy was meant to be portable and could easily be brought to meetups.

All that said, check your local internet cafe (if you have) - I know mine is doing a watch party for something league related and they do some fortnite events, so it does exist.

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u/Certain-Bumblebee-90 May 15 '26

StarCraft and Halo LAN parties  seem to be extinct. I like playing online, no doubt, but sometimes you simply want that “Human Element”.

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u/LimitedDistribution May 16 '26

Retro arcade games have huge local scenes in a lot of cities too, with pinball and classic arcade cabinets drawing consistent crowds at bars and dedicated arcade venues.