If ION's were SUPER cheap how would that change things?

[sanity]

While I agree that it will affect lower end markets like Kingman, if people thought for a little bit it wouldn't have all that much of an effect. All the other equipment needed to play pb will cost almost as much if not more than an ion. Additionally, 3 days of play (at field paint prices) is equal to the cost of an ion. If you want to play paintball with any sort of regularity your marker is going to be outstripped by your other expenses pretty quickly - even if its a higher priced gun than an ion!



PS- Read as: My justification for spending money on markers.

[NukeGoose]

I havent seen a major manufacturer that competes directly with their dealers. Most, if all, sell their stuff at MSRP in their store.

Do you have an example?

888

the body (cover) is and being plastic it can break

Have you never seen metal deform? I have never - ever - seen an Ion where the plastic body was the cause of any problem. Can you link me to an example? Try breaking an Ion body while it's on the gun during sutuations normally encountered during game play (i.e. try bashing it on a rock or sliding it across a rock), and tell me if you can get an Ion to the point of breakage before any metal bodied gun would become unusable. And finally as fire1811 mentioned consider the cost of replacing an ion body against the cost of replacing a metal body.

[68magOwner]

Its funny that people on AO get mad when others bash mags yet they are usually the first to bash IONS. ???

i too had more issues with my mag than i have ever had with any other marker (leaky bolt, chopping, generaly poor performance)
then agan, i only owned really old mags, I have played with my buddes tac one and i love that thing to death, and it never has any issues.

[SpecialBlend2786]

I was unaware that 888 was a manufacturer. Just a online retailer. I have never seen the 888 mfr. product line(markers, masks, etc).

Are they new?

888 = National I believe

[mobsterboy]

It does bug me that every 12 year old will be able to shoot 15bps at once, I think that's a problem that is deeper than just the Ion.
Thanks
Sam Smock
www.vaporworks.net

No. Please tell me you aren't trying to represent Vaporworks here and say a statement like that. Stock ion boards are capped at 16 to 17(decimal difference), and they don't come stock with ramping. They come stock with bounce activation, and they have a way to set it to 15 capped, but its still not cfoa psp or any other ramping legal. And if we arent talking about bounce here, what are the odds the 12 years olds are really gonna read the manual enough to manipulate the board to full auto, which i wasnt aware it had.


Tom, to answer your question: It shouldnt but it does. It makes the mass AGG kiddie population think that if the ion can shoot just as fast as the shocker, impulse, timmy, freestyle, ecocker...why get any other one? Its also customizable (another agg thing. Its like the cockers were, with all the bells and whistles. You can make it what you want... )
so by the less demand, more start to break down and sell for less. So you have timmys, usually going for 800 are now 450. You have dm's, usually going for 900 are now 400 to 500. Then a mass panic hits and everyone wants to dump their guns, until the market is so saturated that you have to sell lower than anyone else in order to sell at all. Then the market starts balancing out. It seems stable, then ions drop price again, and guns are at an alltime low once again

[Aeronautica86]

888



Have you never seen metal deform? I have never - ever - seen an Ion where the plastic body was the cause of any problem. Can you link me to an example? Try breaking an Ion body while it's on the gun during sutuations normally encountered during game play (i.e. try bashing it on a rock or sliding it across a rock), and tell me if you can get an Ion to the point of breakage before any metal bodied gun would become unusable. And finally as fire1811 mentioned consider the cost of replacing an ion body against the cost of replacing a metal body.

I've broken metal pieces (barrels and gun bodies) on the paintball field, so I know that it is possible to get into situations where extreme force is being applied to parts of a marker. I also know that plastic is easier to break than metal. Therefore if I have broken metal parts on the field, I have to assume that I would have broken plastic parts in those same situations, and most likely more often. Because i have broken metal parts on the field, I would assume that any plastic parts would be broken more often because situations where a great enough force is applied to break plastic should occur at higher frequency than situations where enough force is applied to break metal pieces.

And yes, I can say with 100% certainty that a certain plastic object is quite breakable without ever breaking it because I have broken plastic before - example, without ever seeing your wooden pencil of brand X, I know I can snap it in half because I have broken a wooden pencil of brand Y before and know that all wood pencils are created essentially equal, so saying that I can't have knowledge of something I have never seen is not a valid argument.

back to your regularly scheduled programming....

[thefool]

so by the less demand, more start to break down and sell for less. So you have timmys, usually going for 800 are now 450. You have dm's, usually going for 900 are now 400 to 500. Then a mass panic hits and everyone wants to dump their guns, until the market is so saturated that you have to sell lower than anyone else in order to sell at all. Then the market starts balancing out. It seems stable, then ions drop price again, and guns are at an alltime low once again

Thats a very pessimistic view
the way i see it a 100 ion would do several things
it would like you said kill all resale value for a bit
it would probably drive down on kingman and the like
it would lower the cost of paint becasue manufacturures would be able to order lager batchs and make less profit per paintball to make more overall
Yet it still needs hpa/as co2 and a fast hopper so a $100 ion would really be a $250-$300 packageto parents so it wouldnt exacly be entry levle. That or people will run it with co2 and in all likelyhood run into all sorts of probems.

Also, a piont that hasnt been clearly stated, unless the price drop is huge then the market will at some piont slow down almost to a platue beachsue it will be over saturated with ions, which will eventually be discontunied leaving a lot of ions out there just like some spyders. And sp will release something new. Unless the price drop is huge the more expensive market imo wont be extreamly impacted becasue many of its target audience wither want something more prestigios or something of better looks/quality and in all liklyhood already own an ion

i think i started rambling but thats what i say

[TheAngryDrunkenRussian]

Swamp Monster will apear and eat every pig known to man!!!!






Yeha I wasted ............ again

[Aeronautica86]

Swamp Monster will apear and eat every pig known to man!!!!






Yeha I wasted ............ again

even more worthless than the last few posts of mine in this thread

[Tao]

AO,

So if the ION were way cheaper than it is even now how would that affect the paintball world?

AGD

How would the paintball world change? Well not to be a pessimist but I imagine we would have the Walmarts and other centres carying them. that would mean that it would be the punks gun of choice. Most vandalism would result from Ions rather than the usual Walmart speacials.

Besides I would be wary of it even more if it were cheaper. It already is a plastic gun.

I think the question to ask is what if Automags were cheaper? Noobs of today only know Timmy, Ion, Angel (even though they can't aford them) and Tippman. Granted it may not be conceivable to make the automag cheaper but if AGD came up with something to flood the market it would be nice.

[heres where the real hijack begins lol]

The emag is a very nic gun and well built but what if we took back the features that really aren't needed but keep the gun better than the ion?

Take out the manual override, take out the big battery now that it doesn't need that solenoid, take out the level 10...(i assume that eyes are cheaper than everything needed for the level 10???)

Sight rail....gone

stock barrel...optional (most people buy barrel kits right away)

How much would that save? I don't really know of course. Market it like the RT custom. I bet a cut down emag could go for $500 new.

I don't mean to know all of the features on the emag Tom, I love them all, but people are pretty short sighted when it goes to a paintball marker:

Does it look cool/sex/agg/etc

how fast CAN it shoot (a very meaningless feature which usually makes use of the magical marker fairies)

How low of a pressure can it use (wow who cares)

How much$$$$

To reinforce the point of the ahemm ignorance of most people out there they all have back up guns if their main one goes down...this is laughable when I have mechanical overide BUILT IN!!!! :P let alone a gun which to this day has never GONE DOWN!!!

[punkncat]

I'm going to go on a limb and explore another line of thought. Most of the people playing paintball are young, doing so on a limited budget, and playing renegade ball. I think we can all agree on that to one degree or another.

So you take the average broke kid paintball player. You put a really cheap Ion in his hands and set him loose on the field. His allowance(or whatever) is enough for him to afford very little by way of paint and field fees. So given that, once he has purchased his Ion, he has to start thinking about things like HPA tanks and getting them filled. How about a loader faster than the shaker or barely better he already has? Ok so now that he has begged this rather substantial money difference out of someone....vs the shaker and a CO2 tank....hes gotta find somewhere to play.... As we all know the HPA fill at the local pro shop won't last long in the back yard, and that is sure going to suck. And if you can barely afford paint, a few scubas are pretty much out of the question....Lets not forget that if buddy does decide to use CO2 all the issues that will create....

So our newbie Ion owner shows up at the local pay field.
Well after paying field fees, buddy had even less money for paint, and has a marker that will eat it up considerably faster. So in no time his game is over and he's broke. Well either buddy is going to quit, or if he is smart will remember how cost effective and trouble free it was to play with the tippy in the backyard with CO2.

I can't see the price of an Ion affecting paintball much where the majority of paintball games are really going on. It will seem like a visible change to folks who regular the local pay fields, and will kill resale even more than it already has, but I think thats it.

[thefool]

so now we have to do some analisis to seewheather most people would try to save up more money on for piant or just quit, bucasue you point out that it might accually decrease the populatirty of pb

[b e n]

I think if IONs were cheaper all fields would have to hire a Ion serviceing staff because all the noobs will break then in one way or another.

[onedude36]

It may soon become the only guy you can buy, use, and lose all in the same day and not care. Disposable paintball guns.

[peewee]

I think that if they lowered the price on the Ion even lower you would see companies like Kingman & Tippmann produce markers with expanded abilities so that they could compete.