Mags in Tournaments

[Muzikman]

But why is development a new product such a big goal for so many of the point on which they judge a product?

The original Automag68 needed little improvement. All the mods that aftermarket companies offered were placebos and did nothing to improve the marker.

Cocker's on the other hand needed good quality parts after market.

Why is failure to change a good product a bad thing?

Change != good.
Popular != good.
Big company != good.

Because in this (and most industries) if you do not change, you are left behind by the newer (more modern) company.

I never said that what AGD was not good...hell I think the classic is the best gun ever made. But we have to realize, it's not what people want these days.

[SlartyBartFast]

Because in this (and most industries) if you do not change, you are left behind by the newer (more modern) company.

I never said that what AGD was not good...hell I think the classic is the best gun ever made. But we have to realize, it's not what people want these days.

It's not what certain people want.

You are only left behind if you are beaten in YOUR market.

AGD's market is mechanicals and scenario as they abandonned sponsoring tournament and dropped the Emag.

I'd think that today's scenario and mechanical marker market is MUCH larger than the entire market back in the day AGDs ame was in the tournamnet scene.

[VFX_Fenix]

Could it be because AGD is a small company with limited resources and money and they sponsored only one team, where as Angels/Timmies/Trixes are big companies that sponsor multiple teams AND are guns that are cloned/cosmetically altered by multiple other companies that also sponsor teams?

Then, all the fanboys and fashion followers buy what their heros are playing with ehich means more of those markers in the open market as well.

How many Lamborginis do you see on the road or in races? Precious few.

Guess they just aren't good enough.

Should Lamborgini sponsor race teams or lower their standards to Pontiac levels to sell more cars and be more "popular"?

Popularity does NOT equal capability. Two separate things with no connection.

For the record, back when I started playing paintball, there were one of two guns you owned if you were a serious player; Automags or Autocockers. Prior to the electro rush AGD was huge in the industry and in speedball.

When the E-Mag was introduced AGD was already behind the times by, at the very least, 3 years. The E-Mag was released at the end of the 2001 season for tourney paintball, by that time WDP already had at least 2 versions of their Angel (LED and LCD with the LCD in its second year of production), Smart Parts had their Shocker in it's Xth revision and board, Bob Long had his second electro gun on the market, Diablo Direct was selling their e-Matrix, ICD Had their Bushmaster 2000 line well into its 5th+ generation. Autocockers had some form of e-conversion avalible to it (I remember there was a guy at the field I worked for who had this really ugly black box on the bottom of his minicocker which was part of the conversion).

Also, there were a few options you could get to "pretty up" your Mag back in the day, like the Smart Parts splash Ano kits which would replace all the non-Stainless Steel bits for instance.

Bottom line, AGD arrived late to the popular market with a product, the reasons can be found on these boards. By the time AGD arrived on the market with this new product Automags had achieved the status of "Blender" within the paintball community at large, and at the time I would have believed it seeing one Micromag in particular fail horribly in a tournament where it refused to shoot solid balls for the owner who'd been into 'Mags since I'd known him (3 years at that time).

AGD's decrease in popularity stems from many issues which many of us are painfully aware of. As Muzikman said (in a nutshell anyway, forgive the paraphrase) change or be left behind.

Slarty - AGD was beaten in it's market which is why it relegated itself to scenario paintball.

Lead - Follow - Or get out of the way.

[SlartyBartFast]

For the record, back when I started playing paintball, there were one of two guns you owned if you were a serious player; Automags or Autocockers. Prior to the electro rush AGD was huge in the industry and in speedball.

How many serious players were there back then? How big was the paintball marketplace?

It would be interessting to know if AGD's sales were static or not. Static sales, or sales growing at less tahn the growth of the sport, would mean a lowering of AGDs profile. But that wouldn't be a bad thing for the company.

[Lohman446]

You are all forgetting one thing though. AGD is not a publically traded corporation - it is privately held. Until lately that means as long as it did what TK wanted it to (be it what looks like "good" business or not) than it was successful. Its pretty hard for us to stand on the outside when AGD was apparently successful at selling things, innovating when TK wanted to, and profitable to TK when he wanted it to be and tell anyone it failed. It seems to me that TK succeeded at being what TK wanted it to be for as long as he wanted it to be.

[21jumpstreet]

predator board @ morlock

i will use my new emag out there. you can only shoot 15 annyway...

emags and xmags are still used. especally with the ppredator board coming out.

i <3 my emag

Who makes these ? And where can I get one ?
Thanks E- Mag user for life......PS I play speedball tourneys and use my E-mag and we do quite nicely.......

[VFX_Fenix]

How many serious players were there back then? How big was the paintball marketplace?

There were enough of them floating around. It wasn't uncommon to see Autocockers and an occational Automag kicking around when I started playing paintball at the fields I went to. Any given weekend when I was out playing paintball you were looking at enough guys with Cockers/Mags to play against eachother in 5 on 5+ games away from the rec ballers if the less experienced players didn't want to mix with them. Some of those guys were running remotes and T-Stocks and boy did they shoot a lot of paint.

Back then, seemed like if you had stepped up to the Mag or the Cocker you'd somehow become an "uber player" in the mindset of most of the people I talked to. I mean, less than a year into the sport and knowing that Cockers and Mags were what the best guys used, so obviously the guys that used them must be good, right? (Back in the good'ol days when Bob Long was rockin' a Cocker).

Slowly I saw the Cockers/Mags fade from the edge of performance and gave way to a new gun that I'd only really read anything about and finally saw hanging on the wall of my local paintball shop, the Angel LED. After the first local team picked up a set of Angels the game was on and practically everyone phased out their tricked Cockers and Mags for these new super guns.

It was funny, at the time I believed that I'd never want/need an Electro, the trigger pulls were so small and light, the first time I ever shot one I almost wasn't sure I'd shot it then promptly shot the ground infront of me when I was turning the Angel over in my hands.

Anyway, I have no idea if AGD's sales have been more or less constant, but I do know that the Automag has fallen from grace, much like the Angel (though WDP is trying to make(ing) a comeback with sponsorships), in the tournament scene and I was (more or less) here to see it happen. With the Mag no longer considered widely as a "tourney gun" and no teams shooting them, I find it hard to believe that AGD has managed to maintain the sales that it saw once uppon a time in the 90's (I can imagine that AGD may be maintaining sales that would be equivalent to when they first started up but certainly not when they were at their peak).

[peewee]

Actual Tournament ball actually makes up what percentage of the overall paintball markets money?????? It might drive a portion but lets get real!!! Kingman, PMI, viewloader & tippmann sell markers at probably a ten to one rate in comparison to the DM's, angels etc........Why does everyone around here only consider AGD successful if it is involved with tournament ball? I respect Tom for his business decisions. He did it his way. Not many of us can say that. I feel that his hardware contributions to the military & police are a far greater achievement than his paintball stuff. If can save lives. I'LL play proudly with my automag in any tournament I ever enter (if I'm playing semi, phantom if not). But hey I'm just an old timer. We are not AGD zealots as some very small minority would like the general population to believe just because we like our mags more than any other marker out there (except CCI for me = = ). I view those people as zealots for their own markers. My daddy always said if you dont have anything nice to say shut your pie hole!!

[skipdogg]

Rt Pro

Our 3 man team uses Rt Pro's in local tournies. Play against about 90% electro's. I have no need to use anything else.