AGD as a company

[Muzikman]

AGD needed to invest themselves futher on the developement of the E-markers software. Now the arguement was the whole ASTM standards thing. Well them standards never really held up. Tom abided by them and did the right thing in his mind, but come on when you start to see a decline in sales (the bottom line) and the industry is breaking the rules that they set. What are you going to do? Stop what your doing and hide I guess. If your going to make it in this world sometimes you have to take risks and go for broke. No backing down. Beat them in their own game. Fight fire with fire. Play rough, play dirty, play to win. But backing down and and trying not to create waves is what happened. End result was we all lost here in the AGD camp.

This is the exact reason I respect Tom. There are few in this industry that look out for the safety of the players. I would not criticize him for doing that. He understands the dangers of the sport and doesn't want to risk players, and more importantly (to him) himself and the company. AGD's slogan might be "Because Quality Always Shoots Straight" but their philosophy has always seemed to be "Safety First".

Everything in the Automag is over engineered, most of which comes back as a safety feature. I was shocked when Tom started moving to aluminum for some things...like the valve.

[RapidTransit]

Product developments come with a recession. Right now paintball has hit its high mark and is starting to decline, this is when real innovation starts. Look in your history books folks because this is what happens in every industry.

AGD probably has better things to do then parade around and advertise everywhere. If you are serious about the sport then you should know AGD. Why should they advertise for a cult like following?

AGD is not going anywhere and even if they did go under I don't know of any marker company exec who wouldn't want the oppurtunity to buy AGD and scoop up those gov't contracts and utilize there R&D and manufacturing skills. They have to be doing something right with a marker design that still performs so well today being based on a design well over 10 years old.

Where most companys use 6061 heat treated aluminum, AGD uses 7075, theyd probably use 7068 if it wern't 3x more expensive just for the stock not including the extra time and effort in order to machine it. AGD takes pride in quality and that is what sells these markers.

[astroboy]

Some companies move with the times, others reminisce about the good ole days... I remember when AGD first(?) came up with the idea of using nitrogen as a propellent and this was featured in Paintcheck(?) the magazine... I mentioned it to a local field owner and he laughed, calling it a 'crazy' idea... LOL! Yes this was the days of the awesome Tippmann 68 Specials and the PMI3 or was it VM68? The 'mag then came on the scene and it was magical how it shot compared to the other semi's... expensive as heck too! AGD was the forefront of tech and was very popular... somewhere along the line something happened... and here they are now... I don't think it is SP's fault because other companies are doing fine even after SP's lawsuits... maybe being a paintball company in a fledgling industry was a lot easier than being a paintball company in an industry that is said to be the fastest growing sport in North America...?