Is paintball dead?

[rabidchihauhau]

I was not detailing the history of the NFL - or the NBA or...I was presenting the example of a mature, successful professional sport as it exists today.

The history of those other leagues was studied minutely prior to the initial creation of the NPPL - and their examples were placed on the table at that organization's formative meeting. All of it, including their sandlot roots which were VERY analagous to paintball at the time.

[Indignant]

rabid, i wasn't directing my post at you at all. from what i remember reading of your posts it'd be like me trying to teach Yao Ming to be 7 feet tall

[halB]

I was not detailing the history of the NFL - or the NBA or...I was presenting the example of a mature, successful professional sport as it exists today.

The history of those other leagues was studied minutely prior to the initial creation of the NPPL - and their examples were placed on the table at that organization's formative meeting. All of it, including their sandlot roots which were VERY analagous to paintball at the time.

I'm going to be honest. I have a degree in history, and I'm currently trying to find a use for it, hence my post. :)

[cockerpunk]

You're falling for the same false logic that they fall for every time.

A league that seeks mass-media attention is being presented for marketing purposes. You want to spend as little money as possible to get an effective and compelling advertising message across. The sport should give viewers the feeling that 'they can do that too'. Blasting tons of paint only serves to send the message 'I can't/don't want to do that'. If they go further and check the game costs out and compare it to what they saw, they become even more convinced that they can't afford to play.

A sports league for paintball should be nothing more than marquee advertising. In fact, at events, the games should be of secondary consideration to the selling and promotion of the sport at the trade show. If Tippmann is selling 'scenario' guns, the 'sport' should be doing things that support and promote the use of those guns...

On TV, the mere mention of 'professional league' confers that status upon the players and teams. How the game on the field is played is unimportant - except of course you want it to be exiting, interesting and approachable by the viewer.

If you educate everyone into believing that they have to shoot four cases a day in order to play effectively, all you are doing is INSURING that your game will ONLY appeal to folks with lots of money and/or your customers will only last for a short period of time. If you make the apex of the sport (pro) something that truly requires skill above and beyond the ordinary, you give everyone something to aspire to, with the added benefit that any version of paintball people play is 'legit', cause none of it is 'pro'.

In the meantime, the companies can better afford to support a league and players, and have the money to spend on promotion, rather than realizing that one to two skids per per team per practice session, all year long, is just not a sustainable economic model.

Flip it on its head. If providing ALL of the paint for an entire season of league play were actually approachable, don't you think the manufacturers would be falling all over themselves to be THAT paint company?

exactly right on.

poeple love to play paintball. you see them all the time come in in groups and play with rentals against each other and its good fun! and they want to come back and play again.

but they look up the cost of even becoming a regular recballer, with a decent setup, playing every weekend, and they can't do it. not even to mention the staging area attidutes and all the rest taht goes with being a noob in paintball, so they dont.

the goal here is to keep poeple playing, not make a quick buck off them. lifelong players is the goal, not 15 year old kid who will play for 2 years and be done.

of course the MBAs have no idea whats going on so they are just making it worse, by giving the firepower and BPS of a pro in a rec ballers hands. what does that do? make him be able to play even less! so now he is even more unlikly to become a regular becuase his job at the buger joint only lets him play once a month!

i recently posted this in regards to smart parts in particular on another forum mainly talking about SP claiming to have saved paintball with teh ion -

as for bettering the industry, giving new players a 17 BPS cheating gun that only works half the time might not be as helpful as your business plan might have said it would. marketing to 15 year old kids is a just a poor business plan in general, and its a big reason why this industry is sucking. poeple with stable jobs, there priorities correct, and a love for the sport dont care about 170 buck guns. no, its 15 year old kids with there moms paycheck in hand that buy the gun and forget about it a year and half later. bad business plan. you wont see PPS losing business becuase of the recent hits in the industry. it doesn't take a degree in business to see the glaring holes in this "market to hero worshiping teenagers" as a long term strategy.

and -

back to this failed business plan, and the whole "we saved paintball with the ion" right you did ... what did the ion do? it gave noobs the firepower of expireneced players. good for them right? WRONG. think about your typical 15 year old kid who buys an ion, probably paying for this with a 6 buck an hour part time job, or his parents money. that kid works for a month, buys an ion. goes to play paintball. how much do you figure it would cost him, a day of paintball, at 15 BPS, and at 7 BPS? so, the ion is just another one of these exteremly short sighted failures. becuase after a summer working at a burger joint, only getting to play once a month cause thats all he can afford, gets rather tiresome after a couple of years. so, he quits. right there, you just expeleined the paintball industry for the last 4 years, or since the ion came out. now maybe if that kid had bought a tippy or a spyder, and was rolling at 6-8 BPS instead, now he can play every weekend. and he has a fun time doing it becuase hes not flushing money down the toilet either. now after a year, maybe he can buy a mid end, or a high end gun. and now you have a life long player.

[rabidchihauhau]

indignant - no worries; I take nothing personally until it gets personal :)

good line about Yao - but please. I think I made a mistake once...(or as my father once said when asked by my mother if HE had ever made a mistake "Yes. Once." she made the mistake of asking when that was and he replied "when I asked you to marry me..."

Seriously; I make mistakes just like the next guy. I'm just good enough to conceal most of them.

halB; the only really good use for such a degree is to serve the unenviable task of reminding us how many times in the past we've made the same mistakes...cause sure as fecal matter, no one will ever heed the warning in advance...

(I think the far-in-the-future-aliens who discover our long lost civilization will sum us up with the following epitath: They NEVER learned from their mistakes.)

[BAZOOKA_Boy]

I started 9 years ago, and i kinda know what you mean by the spirit dying, though that is not true for all situations/places, but in general yes, ultra cocky tourney players have turned the game into a fashion show, and who has the better looking equipment...

I personally think it depends on where you go, a local field with the same old boys that you play with can be a great day, no matter what! of course we have a few new players there, and at the fields I play at we get penalized a game if we are not civil or helpful to new players that are having trouble...I have formed many a new players by encouragement and support to let them get the kills...its a win win situation, as I have more players to have on my team that are confident in their skills, and so does the other team making the day much more enjoyable...

though I go to the tourney field about an hour from my house, and everyone wipes, and the day just ends up being a bad one unless you join in the low business of wiping and overshooting, which sucks, and its defiantly not newbie friendly...

so it depends on where you go, and how its run, but paintball is not dead, its just slowing down for a bit, it will pick back up,!

[Corbet]

and it seems more about excuses!

can their guns shoot through bunkers? can their guns aim themselves at you? can their guns run themselves down the field?

they can put more paint in the air than you, i guess. that's all it takes to win? you're trying to come up with reasons why you don't like the sport and not facing that it just isn't your thing anymore.

Excuses? An aspect of the game has changed, and I have every right to complain about said aspect. It isn't an excuse, it's something that has changed the game for the worst IMO. Not only does this type of gameplay suck, it sucks for people just getting into the game with rentals or a crappy Spyder.

The game, as people have said, is now about who has the most expensive flashy gun, who is decked out in DYE covered pants, Jerseys, gloves, ect.

[rabidchihauhau]

here's WHY the 'money' is ruining the game:

SPORTS are supposed to be about skill, training, perseverence, fortitude and a little luck.

Go watch ANY sports movie: the story is basically the same: underdog, through hard work, support and love of friends, the development of inherent talents (or the use of a single talent to the nth degree) WINS out over greed, sloth, hubris, cheating AND money.

Paintball has taken that paradigm and perverted it so that its really all about the money - BUYING your way to the top. Sports are supposed to be about anything BUT letting money buy your cheap win.

If you were to remake Hoosiers, or Rudy or even Happy Gilmore based on the 'true story' of paintball, the hero would reluctantly be dragged into the contest, everyone would give him little or no chance of succeeding, he'd luck out, capitalize on native skill, pull a smart move or two, get right up to the finals when everyone had counted him out - and then take a bribe from the bad guys to throw the whole thing so they could continue to market their crap to their adoring (and happily undisappointed) fans. Go watch Dodgeball: instead of reneging on the deal to sell the gym, the movie would have ended with Globo Gym winning. Now imagine that for a second: you've just watched that whole movie, laughed like a silly clown through much of it, gave the Average Joes encouragement from the stands (I mean the couch) cause, after all, The Average Joes is really just you and me fighting against The Man, Globo Gym makes their offer, its accepted and GLOBO GYM WINS! GLOBO GYM WINS! end of movie.

I hope you feel like you need to take a shower, cause that's how it makes me feel.

[Ninjeff]

Really? Because i dont have alot of money, (the money i DO have gets invested into the game well, with good, quality equipment) and i can constantly rock guys with much more $$$ invested. With the "high powered" Shockers and Dye wiz-bang guns and matching clothing lines. If money buys you skill in paintball, then how is it that a guy with nothing more than an X-Valved Mag, 1000 rounds for the 8 hour day, and a white t-shirt can beat the kids with PM7s set to ramp 2 full cases and matching gear?

How?

Skill, experience, and practice. How is it that the most feared person on the field is always a dude named James with an old school rock and cock pumper and a brown tshirt wrapped around his head to keep the sweat out of his old and beat up profilers? How? because the dude can snap shoot quick, with dead on accuracy and he knows the game.

Skill trumps cash in paintball. Always has, always will.