New to Cleveland. Where's the gamers?

July 9, 2007 7:25 AM

I'm a computer game developer and video game player, who just moved to Cleveland, Ohio. I wanna meet new friends and hang out with peers.

I've been looking for developer meetups, lan parties, lan centers (cyber cafes), and/or the center-of-gravity shop in these parts, with little luck.

Please help me out!

posted by Emera Gratia to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Welcome to the northcoast!

Retail is largely centered in Lyndhurst/Beachwood, which is east of the city, off of I-271 on Cedar Rd. (Apple Store, Nordstrom's, Saks 5th Ave, Crate&Barrel, etc).

Microcenter is in Mayfield Heights on SOM Center Rd.

Taking the Shaker Rapid Train (RTA) is $3.50 for a day-pass and $1.75 to the airport. This is an underutilized service in Cleveland. Note that there is no free WiFi on the trains.

Susan's Coffee and Tea and Arabica are two Akron-based coffee shops, if you're looking for Starbucks alternatives.

Aladdin's Eatery is a fantastic local Mediterranean restaurant, which is usually open pretty late.
posted by vkxmai at 7:34 AM on July 9, 2007

Though I loathe for-profit networking sites, the Cleveland meetup.com listings indicate that a ton of people are active there. It looks like you have the market cornered on a computer-related group. So you if you have some cash sitting around, I'd strongly recommend ponying it up... I think you'd do well there.

On another note, speaking as a developer myself, do you really want to socialize with other developers? To me, it's sort of like bringing work home... so I would argue the merits of seeking out people with much different life experiences and get involved with an oblique set of interests and hobbies. You may want to try some of the existing meetups that sound vaguely interesting.
posted by rolypolyman at 8:03 AM on July 9, 2007

vkxmai has my kind of taste, mostly ::smiles::

I can't answer quite the question you asked either, but these may help. None are things I have actually attended or been part of myself, yet, but at least I know enough to tell you a bit about them.

To start with the more generic, you could try finding people with similar skills in the Cleveland Professional Twenty-Thirty Club, and hopefully then your after-work network would expand. The technological sector is part of the demographic, but not all.

RefreshCleveland is a group of designers and developers, but it seems more web-based.

Do you do any gaming on Linux? Want to meet people trying to do so? Frankly they probably need your help :)

Finally, this may or may not be your gaming style, but ColossalCon is based in Cleveland. It's based around anime, including gaming.

Welcome to Cleveland! :)
posted by RobotHeart at 9:48 AM on July 9, 2007

Oh! And I just found FragFestOhio on the ColossalCon site. Maybe that's more up your alley. It's nearby in Hudson, and very, very soon.
posted by RobotHeart at 9:51 AM on July 9, 2007

The game developer meetups for the last several months were attended by 5-7. There's a NEO Videogame Initiative but they don't seem very active.

I can't think of many other, if any,specifically game design groups in Cleveland. I'll try to mention as many design and technology related groups as I can think of. They should periodically have events of interest to a video game designer. They may also be able to help you find (or create) other resources.

Defrag Ohio. They had a conference in Lorain recently and will have one in Cleveland soon. They aren't concentrated on video games but I think that you can expect some video game content. There was some at the Lorain event.

Michael DeAloia, the Cleveland "tech czar", wants a video game incubator. This article is a little stale unfortunately. It also discusses the intentions of CASE and the Cleveland Institute of Art. Future is the CIA center for design and technology.

DeAloia recently spoke at Notacon. Dan Cuffaro also spoke about the Cleveland Design District. I think audio is available at the website.

The Ingenuity Festival is actually in about a week. It's an arts and technology festival. I don't think they've got information about most of their events on the website yet but a search for video game already turns up a couple items.

I'm sure there's a video game parlor somewhere in Cleveland and it's driving me crazy. I checked Scene Magazine's Best of Cleveland 2006 and 2005 issue because I thought I may have read about it there. No video game love but plenty of restaurants, shops and entertainment options that you might enjoy.
posted by stuart_s at 11:28 AM on July 10, 2007

Brewed Fresh Daily is a good source of information in Cleveland. Especially regarding local blogging and activism. The editor is also affiliated with Cool Cleveland which is a good source for local news and events and also affiliated with Meet the Bloggers where local bloggers have discussions with interesting members of the community. Politicians, entrepreneurs, etc... Anyway, they recently did a good job answering questions for someone considering relocating to Cleveland. I posed your question to them.
posted by stuart_s at 12:39 PM on July 10, 2007