Is paintball dead?

[robnix]

when do you think paintball will hit the olympics ??????

Never. One of the main criteria for Olympic consideration is that there's an international body governing the rules of the game for international competition. Considering we can't even agree whether the game is properly played in the woods or behind blow up dolls I'd say the chance of paintball hitting the Olympics anytime soon is some where between zero and null.

And any reference to the Popular Mechanics article on this subject is moot. The article was plain wrong, paintball was never considered for the Olympics. You can find a list of events that were considered for each Olympiad on the IOC website.

[KC]

Like some have said here, I think it is the ramping and insane ROF. Now my favorite thing to do is play heavy gunner, I sit back, spray bunkers and allow the kids to move up, then I walk up to the next bunker..... well if I have to I will run. I don't have much time to play so get out maybe 1-2 x month so I pump out the paint when I do play. (2000 in a few hours/games) That being said, I do not put 16bps at a person, Ill fire 3/4 and then pause and continue. I do remember some of the best games I have played were with my 68 classic or VM 68magnum back in the early 90's, and of course we thought we were slinging paint then at 4-5 a second lol. I DO have an issue with being over shot, don't mind 1-2 bonus balls but 6-8 gets me a bit peaved off. I think 10 bps is plenty, but of course the agg kiddie whos mommy just bought him an $2000 ego will prob not agree with me.

Emag FTW.
Input pressure of 800psi and mechanical mode is "fair" for the kids using rentals and E-mode ramped gives the Ego owner a taste of what he is dishing out. Ill always shoot an agd emag because its the only marker that can let me do that.

It took me forever to go electro. Didnt like it, still dont. But when I need it, the firepower is just a switch away.

[Ninjeff]

Paintball hasnt changed, the clientel have.


When i started in 97 i was 17, and one of the youngest players at the field. When i joined my first team at 19 i was the second youngest on the team of 32 players. Everyone else was 23 or above. Thus the attitude of the game was more mature.

[thejere]

Its at every level of the game now:

http://www.p8ntballer.com/interviewcontent/20080121.shtml

When you try to suck money out of a sport, you start to change it. Often for the worse.
I hope most people posting here still congratulate the player who tagged them or politely tell the new kid how to shoot from cover.
I think the best model for any sport is to look to the x-games (seriously) because year after year, you hear the athletes say that they are just happy to be out advancing the sport, to be able to compete with the best and to be there when a fellow athlete has a medal winning day.

We are a counter culture in sports, so lets stick together.

[Zone Drifter]

It's the economy man, don't you know we're heading to recession? Look at the gas prices!

Nah, I think it's just because the only equipment people are introduced to are Tippmann and Smart Parts, and so It only seems like things are slowing when really it's overproduction from certain companies. On my team of 9 guys, I'm the only one who doesn't run with either a Tippmann or SP8, and I'm certainly proud of it.

[halB]

You can blame the industry for kicking itself in the butt.

5 years ago when i was first introduce to paintball, the game was a bit nicer and friendlier. People would show me how to set up my spyder cause i didn't know how to set it up properly. Now when i go to the local field, the kids with the most expensive marker think they rule the world. I had a kids just yelling at me to run forward, while he stand in the back with his dye and spray. Also the field, especially the advance field seem to has gotten more cocky and rude, to the point of trash talking, and using bad word while my little brother and sister are there. ( I got fed-up with it, so i grab my pistol and took them to the newbie field where they can actually play and not get yell at).

Just blame NPPL for all the flashy promotion without the honor of the game. It's even hard to find a good scenario game in san diego these day.

Ya I don't play on the sup' air fields anymore. Too much testosterone. I mean, how sad is it when someone who's been playing for 8+ years can't go play on the advanced field, because I don't feel like getting scarred up by some punk kid with an ego who's shooting hot in ramping mode. I don't need that. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be people played the same in the airball fields as they did the rec fields, a clean game that was there for fun. But now they all wanna be like a NPPL star, so they let it go to their heads.

Isn't this the problem with the FIELDS?! I mean, it is only possible to play how the fields allow you to play. Right now, all the fields want to do is sell you paint paint paint. So they like ramping, they love bonus balling, and they encourage all of it. Too bad there aren't anymore fields out there that are set up to allow you to enjoy yourself the most, not sell the most paint.

[Ninjeff]

Its at every level of the game now:

http://www.p8ntballer.com/interviewcontent/20080121.shtml

When you try to suck money out of a sport, you start to change it. Often for the worse.
I hope most people posting here still congratulate the player who tagged them or politely tell the new kid how to shoot from cover.
I think the best model for any sport is to look to the x-games (seriously) because year after year, you hear the athletes say that they are just happy to be out advancing the sport, to be able to compete with the best and to be there when a fellow athlete has a medal winning day.

We are a counter culture in sports, so lets stick together.

good article.

Seems like the biggest problem is that big business has realized there is money in teh sport, and the suits have moved in, set up shop, and are running everyone out of town with snakey deals and back ally dealings. Just 10 years ago all you had was a bunch of good, honest, blue collar type guys working to make the sport better. Inventing what they had to or finding another honest guy that could. Now the suits have come to play and they dont do buisness deals with a nod and a handshake like people did in paintball before. Now you need 26 page contracts and lawyers and ties and such. You need an army of legal rats just to keep the ship afloat. There is very few honest people in the sport now, and even those honest peopel grow increasingly jaded.

Soon the influx of new, opportunistic players that grew out of the paintabll boom of the late 90s early 00s will wither and fade after they realize that they cant keep biting teh hand that feeds them. Hopefully then all we (paintball) will be left with is the good honest guys again with a true love for the sport.

hopefully.

[AltogetherAndrews]

Isn't this the problem with the FIELDS?! I mean, it is only possible to play how the fields allow you to play. Right now, all the fields want to do is sell you paint paint paint. So they like ramping, they love bonus balling, and they encourage all of it. Too bad there aren't anymore fields out there that are set up to allow you to enjoy yourself the most, not sell the most paint.

Yeah, we need to sell paint. If everyone came in, bought a box of paint each and went on to drop those boxes from the nearest cliff, that'd be ideal for the profit margin. And that is really a damned shame. I guess that's why we are hoping this tactical angle with pre-designed missions etc takes off to the point where we can get people interested in paying for that, for the whole package. Ideally, this would inspire gameplay that is less focused on spraying paint while still allowing us to profit. We'll see, but the reality right now is that if we want to keep this field open, we need to focus on selling paint, and lots of it.

[Ninjeff]

Ya I don't play on the sup' air fields anymore. Too much testosterone. I mean, how sad is it when someone who's been playing for 8+ years can't go play on the advanced field, because I don't feel like getting scarred up by some punk kid with an ego who's shooting hot in ramping mode. I don't need that. It didn't used to be like that. It used to be people played the same in the airball fields as they did the rec fields, a clean game that was there for fun. But now they all wanna be like a NPPL star, so they let it go to their heads.

Isn't this the problem with the FIELDS?! I mean, it is only possible to play how the fields allow you to play. Right now, all the fields want to do is sell you paint paint paint. So they like ramping, they love bonus balling, and they encourage all of it. Too bad there aren't anymore fields out there that are set up to allow you to enjoy yourself the most, not sell the most paint.

I agree with the first paragraph.

The second just tells me that you have some cruddy fields in your area. The field i go to does very well, and doesnt shove paint in your face and encourage you to ravage the other players.
heck, one of teh most profitable days for the field is SPE. Thats Spring Pump Event.

[nathanjones008]

i think

I think that it is tha lagging economy. People are having a tough time paying their mortgage on time( they have more important things to worry about.). There is some crazy inflation going on. The ecomony has transformed to " i want" to " i need" items.

With that being said, once the economy picks up, i am sure paintball will pick and. New customers will emerge.


I think there is plenty of inovation in the paintball world. We have many great products on the market. So paintball is not dead!!!!!!!

[Maghog]

Consider this though: you are a newbie and after a day of playing for your first time you decide to take the plunge and buy your own equipment. You don't have much as far as funding goes, so you go for the low-ball market which is flooded now. You know nothing, don't think to ask for advice, and pick out the best looking thing that you like in your meager price range. You buy the cheaper agitating loader, and decide to run on CO2 to keep costs down.
By the second or third time out there playing, your setup cracks, breaks, discontinues functioning or whatever. The field guys snicker to themselves, the hot line you bought it from doesn't really give a crap because they got their money, so they say,"call the manufacturer." So you do, and if you are lucky enough you can send it in to have your cheap gun fixed. It comes back and then doesn't take long to malfunction again.
What do you do now? Do you go for a new setup you can't afford, or just ditch the whole concept of paintball and buy a new pair of those cool shoes that are supposed to make you jump really high?

When I used to play, everyone was helping everyone else. Experienced players were glad to help newbies get through the tough times, not to mention the fact that if a product wasn't any good, then it wouldn't be seen for long. We did it because we didn't want to just shoot at "targets" on the field but because it helped elevate the quality of the game.
There are definitely still helpful people out there on the fields, but they are far and few between. Some of my most precious memories involve helping people start out playing from nothing to one day having them take me out on the field, and then having them thank me for getting them there.
That's paintball!

[rabidchihauhau]

Its at every level of the game now:

http://www.p8ntballer.com/interviewcontent/20080121.shtml

When you try to suck money out of a sport, you start to change it. Often for the worse.
I hope most people posting here still congratulate the player who tagged them or politely tell the new kid how to shoot from cover.
I think the best model for any sport is to look to the x-games (seriously) because year after year, you hear the athletes say that they are just happy to be out advancing the sport, to be able to compete with the best and to be there when a fellow athlete has a medal winning day.

We are a counter culture in sports, so lets stick together.

That interview with Bob was funny and sad at the same time. YEARS ago I warned him about working with Gino, and I warned him about going with the NXL...

***

The economy is in a slump and is having an effect. The interesting thing this time around is that slumps in the overall economy used to have little to no effect on paintball; people were willing to tighten their belts on other things to keep playing just a little longer and usually managed to ride out the slumps. But that was when most people playing earned their own money and could make those decisions for themselves. Now, most people playing are playing with someone else's money, and mom and dad are not about to slip a mortgage payment or kite a rent check so little Billy can keep shooting paintballs.

If Bob is reading the writing on the wall correctly, NXL is in trouble. The funniest part of this whole thing is that when ProCaps saw my USPL format in 2000, they thought so much of its ability to generate paint usage that they kinda went off and did it themselves (without including me). What they saw was not the reality. The format was designed to REDUCE paint consumption and place the emphasis on manuever and positioning. Had they worked with me and the format, NXL would be the LEAST EXPENSIVE format to play these days. The jokes on them. Soon they'll have nothing, which at least makes us even... (Think about it for a second: if you are asking paint manufacturers to step up and support professional sports, doesn't it make sense for the format to be as inexpensive to them as possible? Duh!)

The ONLY thing that will keep paintball from becoming an 'also-ran' will be a recognition by the INDUSTRY that they must regain some control over the market and pump promotional dollars into the grass roots. That means fields. That means public safety campaigns against outlaw play, it means dollars spent advertising fields rather than teams, it means industry-supported social networking that's designed for the occassional and new player, not some exclusive $1500 a gun club. Gangsta must GO. But then they wouldn't be able to hide their thieving and lying behind a bad-boy culture, so I'm pretty sure we can forget about that happening.

[halB]

What can I do to help paintball? More specifically, what can I do to help AGD? I think this sports survival is linked to the companies that made it fun and great to begin with.

[Ninjeff]

If paintball was gong to go the way of the Dodo it would have done so a loooooooooong time ago. There is something special in the sport. Ive never taken someone to play who hasnt wanted to play again.

[Hilltop Customs]

If Bob is reading the writing on the wall correctly, NXL is in trouble. The funniest part of this whole thing is that when ProCaps saw my USPL format in 2000, they thought so much of its ability to generate paint usage that they kinda went off and did it themselves (without including me). What they saw was not the reality. The format was designed to REDUCE paint consumption and place the emphasis on manuever and positioning. Had they worked with me and the format, NXL would be the LEAST EXPENSIVE format to play these days. The jokes on them. Soon they'll have nothing, which at least makes us even... (Think about it for a second: if you are asking paint manufacturers to step up and support professional sports, doesn't it make sense for the format to be as inexpensive to them as possible? Duh!)

Maybe I'm misunderstanding you, but at the end there it sounds like your saying "the paint manu's will be more supportavie of a format which will reduce their costs"

If i was a paint company, I would want the pros to play the absoulely most spray and pray format possible. I would want players to be FORCED to carry 8+ pods a game. I would want them to be ramping to 20+bps. As the paint company I would not care about the dollar value of the pros usage, hell I will give them paint for free. I'd be more interested all the wannabes out there who emulate these pros and will dump paint like its a bad habbit just to be like them.....I only want 2 differences between the pros and the wannabes: 1. Wannabes hugely outnumber the pros 2. The wannabes are forced to pay retail for paint while pros can have it for free. Both of which are true. Plain and simple paint compaines are loving the e-gun race.

Back in the day it used to be "my gun can shoot farther than yours." A friend of mine(an engineer by profession!) still claims his autococker can "shoot farther than anything other than a flatline." But we all know that is plain and simple BS. Well the same thing is going on today...."my guns shoots faster than yours"......that may be...but your not allowed to shoot that fast anyhow.


On another note:
Paint prices should have dropped a long time ago. The raw materials it costs to produce paintballs is next to nothing. Yes there is a large initial startup cost, but that has long been recouped and they are making straight profits now. In mass production volume = profits. from pump, to semi, and now to electronic there has been a monsturous jump in volume, but yet no major price reductions.


IMO:
If paintballs dead, its the paint companies who killed it.
or
If paintballs dying, its that paint companies who are silently holding a pillow over its face while it gasps for air.