State of Paintball?

[Evil1]

Just dropped in after a while of not really following paintball due to time restraints with work and life in general and decided to get back into the sport. I still have all of my gear, but I came here to see how AO was doing and to look for a newer gun. All of my N2 tanks need to be rehydroed and its been some time since my classic RT, angel ir3, my VERY OLD mech cocker, or my 04 alias have seen the light of day or had air or paint put through them. Anyway, I have noticed while trolling the threads that many people make mention of "paintball dying" or "noone plays anymore" Is there any truth to this? Is the state of paintball really as bad as its made out to be? I recently reunited with some old buddies that played paintball with me every since I first played back in 95 or 96 and they are still very enthusiastic about the sport as if it were 95 or 96. I would really hate for these rumors to be true. I am getting back into paintball and have been talking about it with my friends and we even recruited some new players. It would suck for us older players and newer players to have paintball be like it was when I first started playing. You really had to dig to find other people that played and fields or stores were few and far between. I would just like to get some responses to shed some light on what ive been reading and hearing. Thanks in advance.

[Raven001]

Paintball has been dying ever since they went to constant air. :shooting:

There are a lot of reasons why some people feel paintball is dying.

It's a generational thing. If you grew up playing paintball a certain way and then something changes, you lament the change. When it went from 12 grams to constant air, the 12 gram purists were sure that paintball was doomed. Tactics would no longer count. When it went from pump to semi, same argument. Ditto for mechanical to electro. 15 man to 10 man to 7 man teams etc.

If the marker you played with went out of fashion you feel nostalgic for the old days (when it was Nelspots vs the plastic thing or Cockers vs Mags).

I still play and it's still fun (at least the woodsball is anyways. the tourney scene has sucked a long time). There are still new players coming out and having a blast. Older players are still playing. The numbers are not what they used to be but they are still good enough to warrant commercial viability in my area of the world.

Now commercially paintball may be in a recession. It is a luxury and when times are hard, non essentials get reduced or eliminated. Some of the companies that jumped on the paintball bandwagon thought they had the next X sport in the palm of their hands. Sadly, paintball is even less TV friendly than hockey. I don't know about anyone else but I'll still be pumping out little gelatine capsules when I'm 65....

[DanMan]

I think the economy is a big thing, but hey, I went to oklahoma D-Day this year and there were 4000 people! And companies still put out new stuff so it cant be that bad. Once only planet eclipse, tippmann, and dye are left and arent putting out new stuff then we need to worry :eek:

[Hook]

The local fields out here are jam packed every weekend, and there are several events on any given month.

I only play speedball in winter when the woodsball fieds are closed, otherwise, I play woodsball. I've seen lots of new players, and the proshops are busy as heck around here.

If anything, the whole "painthball is dying" remark seems to revolve around the tourney aspect of the sport.

[snoopay700]

Eh, depends on where you're at, around here fields have been closing down or getting a lot less business, and it's probably due to the economy, but even my boss warned against trying to get into a paintball business right now with how the economy is and everything. I doubt it'll ever die though, things would have to be really rough for that to ever happen.

[Russ]

Paintball is expensive. The amount of paint that gets fired, even in any rec-ball game is rediculous, and a whole lot of folks can't afford it.

Tournament play has no unity and direction,

I play scenario's these days, now that I'm old & slow :)

[MAGnetism]

Paintball is fine, growing, more popular every year, and as everything, ever changing.

[DanMan]

I am guessing that pumps will be making a come back. People will go from their electro, to a mech, and then a pump, and then say (at least as long as other people are using pumps) "hey, this is just as fun" this will last for a few years, and then things will turn back up again and people will will go back to the fast guns, and the cycle will continue. Or we will continue down this slippery slope and the federal reserve will cause massive hyperinflation and we will start living in caves and grunting. :bounce:

[Evil1]

I didn't see it that way but I understand. I just haven't heard so much talk of "paintball dying" until very recently. I was just thinking worst case scenario and thinking major companies were folding and paintballs were going to be discontinued and crazy things like that. I was out of paintball for about a year and a half. A bit closer to 2 years and almost 3 since I played a real game. I never stopped liking paintball. I just didn't have the time to play anymore.

[halB]

Paintball has reached a point of stagnation. Nothing new has come out in the past several years - just reiterations of old stuff. It's like we don't know where to go from here. We've reached a terminal point - at least when it comes to things like the size and weight of the gun:

Make the gun as light as you want. But it won't matter when a fully loaded hopper will ALWAYS weigh X- and a tank will ALWAYS weigh at least Y, due to safety regulations. (I heard from a welding shop that there are lighter tanks than CF available...)

[xero28]

Paintball has reached a point of stagnation. Nothing new has come out in the past several years - just reiterations of old stuff. It's like we don't know where to go from here. We've reached a terminal point - at least when it comes to things like the size and weight of the gun:

Make the gun as light as you want. But it won't matter when a fully loaded hopper will ALWAYS weigh X- and a tank will ALWAYS weigh at least Y, due to safety regulations. (I heard from a welding shop that there are lighter tanks than CF available...)

I think there may be a point that technology will HAVE to slow down. There is only so much you can do with metal, air and colored liquid. There will always be new ideas for the sport, but you're right, many reiterations, but those reiterations will usually make things better...usually. That is what I love about my mag. The same design/technology that hasn't changed much over the past 20 years or so is in my hands when I play against "cutting edge" guns, and I'm doing just as well as them.

I don't see the sport going away anytime soon. I play at a river bottom close by and there are regularly about 15-20 people there every weekend throughout the day. With the economy the way it is, it's true, people will be cutting back on unnecessary luxuries. As long as they still make the paint, it will be leaving my barrel at 280 FPS

[dark blade]

as far as im concerned paintball can never die as long as me and some other guy own a mag... my reasoning is because worst come to worst we can use marshmallows and shoot each other and i know mags will never "break" so we will never have to stop playing.

As long as there are paint and o-rings i will play. These are the only two things that i really need in order to maintain happiness



however... in a true sense i feel that paintball is not dieing but is in fact growing, i feel it is growing extremely fast yet is growing in the wrong direction. Now-a-days if your marker doesnt get 2,000 shots out of a 68/45 and shoot over 30bps then its crap. yet IMHO if its not an automag its crap. So peoples opinions differ. I have currently watched 7 friends get involved in paintball in the past 3 months because of me and now all own mags. Oddly enough to say, all the friends who started because of them started with other markers and have since quit but the people i made start with mags refuse to stop playing. I think it has to do with the fact that they almost never have to be maintained and always work reliably.

Long live the automag and long live paintball... and death to all people who feel that if its not an ego its not a good marker because that seems to be the general consensus now-a-days