Where do you play so many games?

In response to my October games summary Iain asked where I play so many games.
I've been meaning to write an entry that answers that as part of it, so here's that post.

I'm very lucky to live in Boston which has likely the highest
concentration of "German" gamers in the US. Further, I'm lucky in
that non-gamer friends tend to like to play games a lot even if not in
the overall quantities I tend to. Finally, my family (wife, parents,
brother, in-laws) all have some interest in playing games. This
combination of factors means I get to play a lot of games.

In terms of the particulars, my gaming occurs in a few venues:

• Hosted Sessions. Lots of individuals in the greater Boston area hold semi-public sessions on a weekly or monthly basis at their homes. Further, there are a number of private sessions which often have a higher fraction of casual gamers.
  
• Gaming Events. These are periodic public and invitational events like the Unity Games events and the Gathering.
  
• Friends. These aren't so much "sessions" as having frineds over or being out with friends and playing some games.
  
• Family. As I mentioned, my family enjoys playing games. These won't usually be involved sessions, usually 1 or 2 games in an evening.
  

Before my daughter was born we hosted a monthly private session with
usually about 8 people attending, typically half regular gamers and
half people who don't game outside of my session. I expect we'll
resume these at some point.

Of the four categories above, about 40-50% of my gaming is at hosted sessions and 15-20% in each of the other three categories. One friend runs a weekly session at which I play an average of about 3 games so that represents a good fraction of the monthly gaming alone.