Worr bought by K2

[Plazmic]

I cannot see how this is a bad thing. It's interesting, to be sure, but not necessarily bad by any means. K2 makes top notch products for winter sports. You will see K2 at top end winter sports competitions all the time. Why would K2 owning a top end marker company cause that company to decline? All I see is a sports company rounding out its product line with a high-end product.

Look at it this way: Nissan makes the Sentra. Not a bad car, but very plastic and kinda slow unless you drop some serious money into it. Nissan also makes the Infinity G35 which is neither plastic nor slow. The Infinity line is top-end for Nissan, like the WGP line will be top-end for K2's paintball division.

[Plazmic]

Personally, I'd much rather see more AGD products out there rather than more WGP products, but I don't want to see any AGD products that Tom Kaye has not been involved in. Without TK, AGD is nothing.

Hey Tom...I actually have heard rumors that you want out. If you are going to leave, please let us know...

...and maybe sell us all your product stock at a nice discount while you're at it. I don't want to buy any Mag stuff from some superpower. I prefer the smaller company that builds a bad-*** product.

[1stdeadeye]

Okay, one more time, from the top.

K2 owns Brass Eagle, which has a distribution relationship with WalMart.

K2 just bought WGP, and has indicated that WGP and Brass Eagle will operate independently, with WGP positioned as a high-end alternative to the BE products. Indeed, the press release didn't even mention BE as anything other than a footnote.

What it did say was that JT and WGP will benefit from common distribution channels. It's quite clear that they're speaking of the higher-end JT stuff--the high-end clothing, the Quadra line of markers, the non-Alpha masks, etc.; in short, the stuff you won't find at WalMart.

How does one read that, and infer that there will be any sort of relationship between WalMart and WGP, or that the quality of WGP goods will automatically decline?

Hey guess what, this happens everyday in the business world. Who says WGP will suffer? They won't! Daimler makes $10,000 Dodge Neons and $350,000 Maybachs. Ford makes a $10,000 Focus and a $250,000 Aston Martin. Many large companies have differentiated sales brands to reach multiple segments of the market. This is finally reaching paintball. We will have a company that makes high and low end markers, versus the Low End (Kingman, Tippman, etc...), Mid Level (ICD, AGD[with just the RT PRO and Tach One now], etc...., and High end (BLAST, WDP, Smart Parts).

Paintball is becoming more like the real business world!

[spantol]

This is finally reaching paintball. We will have a company that makes high and low end markers, versus the Low End (Kingman, Tippman, etc...), Mid Level (ICD, AGD[with just the RT PRO and Tach One now], etc...., and High end (BLAST, WDP, Smart Parts).

Paintball is becoming more like the real business world!

National's been doing brand/market pairing for awhile now, with their plethora of Spyder clones on the low-end, and bevy of Intimidators on the high-end. More recently, it looks like they're positioning their PsychoBallistics Fockers as a mid-range option.

Watching K2 and National butt heads will be all kinds of interesting.

[deathstalker]

As bad as this new aquisition kind of is, I am kind of excited to see what wal mart has planned for the autococker. My guess is that they will be the same but with real low grade materials used for production.

Thank you for posting and removing all doubt.

[11_Mile_TMaster]

WGP had no reason to deal with SP. The Worr-Blade, is just an E-Blade with some minor cosmetic differences. While I do not know the details of the deal between Eclipse and WGP as far as I know it had nothing whatsoever to do with one company buying the other. As far as I know, WGP first "endorsed" the e-blade as the e-cocker upgrade of choice and brought out the e-orracle. Then, the next season, they introduced the worr-blade and a few more e-cockers, but all using the basic e-blade.

However, WGP by itself, had no reason to fear SP as they never produced an e-gun, as far as I know.

Ogre

Meh, It's more complicated than that. Especially since they sell things like the E-Class Guns, the Superstock, and The Naughty Dogg Cocker, all of which have E-frames.

Plus, a couple years ago, they made a Electronic Blowback with Cocker threads, called the e-ranger.

[ogre55]

Meh, It's more complicated than that. Especially since they sell things like the E-Class Guns, the Superstock, and The Naughty Dogg Cocker, all of which have E-frames.

Plus, a couple years ago, they made a Electronic Blowback with Cocker threads, called the e-ranger.

As I have already said at least twice in this thread, all the E-Class guns that WGP makes use the Worr-Blade, which is an E-Blade that looks slightly different. As far as I know all the Worr-Blade are made by Planet which has a license to sell their products.

The E-Ranger is no longer being produced as far as I know and is thus a non issue.

Ogre

[DiRTyBuNNy]

As I have already said at least twice in this thread, all the E-Class guns that WGP makes use the Worr-Blade, which is an E-Blade that looks slightly different. As far as I know all the Worr-Blade are made by Planet which has a license to sell their products.

The E-Ranger is no longer being produced as far as I know and is thus a non issue.

Ogre

You're close...but not quite right...let me make it simple for those that don't understand that WorrBlade/eBlade connection. WGP makes the WorrBlade frame itself in California and puts eBlade components into it under a license from Eclipse. So yes, by virtue of their agreement with Eclipse, they fall under the umbrella of Eclipse's deal with SP.

And for all those that keep putting BE and WGP together...that's not going to happen whatsoever. You probably don't even realize how many brands K2 owns (Planet Earth, Adio and Hawk Shoes, Rawlings, Worth, Shakespeare, Pflueger, Stearns, K2, Ride, Olin, Morrow, Tubbs and Atlas). They like to promote brand identity...not destroy it...why buy a company with it's own brand identity and then turn it into one you already own?

[atm743]

Ummmm that's a shocker, not an Imp.

umm it really is a impy. its the new rat. check out the this site www.e-paintballoutlet.com theres a sneake peake of the new rat.

[spantol]

Do note that the site refers to a "sneak peek" at the new "Rat paintball marker." It's quite clearly a Shocker, and indeed, the EPBO folks have made repeated mention of their upcoming Rat Shockers over at PBNation.

umm it really is a impy. its the new rat. check out the this site www.e-paintballoutlet.com theres a sneake peake of the new rat.

[Deep Sixx]

umm it really is a impy. its the new rat. check out the this site www.e-paintballoutlet.com theres a sneake peake of the new rat.

No. It's a Shocker.

sixx

[atm743]

ok ?? i allways saw a rat as an impules. jest cuse it looks like hte 03 shocker dosent mean that every marker that looks like it is going to be called a shocker. but whatever

[JAM]

yeah they just call their in-house guns Rat _____. Rat Impulse, now Rat Shocker. I'm not sold on thelook, but it's always nice to see a variety of companies do some different millings.

And I agree with those who said the K2 acquisition is probably a good thing for WORR and I think for Paintball. K2 is a good company with lots of marketing and manufacturing experience and that can only help legitimize the sport.

As for clones taking part of the cocker market- sure, they take someof it, but most of the clones are licensed and milled from WORR bodies, giving bud some of the money from their sale.

j

[Deep Sixx]

ok ?? i allways saw a rat as an impules. jest cuse it looks like hte 03 shocker dosent mean that every marker that looks like it is going to be called a shocker. but whatever

It IS a Shocker... a Rat Shocker. Just because it's a Rat-gun doesn't mean it has to be an Impulse.

Look at the file names of the pics on EPBO's website.

sixx

[thecavemankevin]

National's been doing brand/market pairing for awhile now, with their plethora of Spyder clones on the low-end, and bevy of Intimidators on the high-end. More recently, it looks like they're positioning their PsychoBallistics Fockers as a mid-range option.

Watching K2 and National butt heads will be all kinds of interesting.

not trying to argue with you, because i have agreed with everything else you have said about multi branding etc...but national doesn't own kingman, nor does it own Intimidator/Bob Long's delta. It is a distributor that has some minor ownership in some of the companies it distributes for. I know it has some ownership of the timmy, but not control. And i don't think, but do not know for sure if they own anything of kingman other than distrobution rights. Thus national is not technically multi-branding...or atleast not with that example.

You do obviously know what your talking about though...one of the best examples of mutli branding would be GM's Sunfire and Chevy's Cavalier. Same car different company.

so in the end, is it possible that we will see some of BE's junky guns under the WGP name? Yes, it is more than possible...it is quite probably (but i doubt anytime soon).