who is to blame
I have been thinking a lot lately about the “Save Paintball” movement and I have come to a conclusion that some may disagree with.
The corner stone of the movement seems to be about reducing prices. I don’t know about you but I do not know very many guys getting rich from operating their paintball store, field or event. Yes prices may seem high today but compared to just ten years ago prices are extremely cheap. High end gear has a high end price tag to go with it and so it should. We still have affordable entry level markers and gear that is more than adequate. In fact in many ways the cheap gear of today is as good as the middle of the road gear of yesterday.
Maybe it is just me being protective of the friends I have in the industry but I know what the markup for many of these retailers is and I think that they are being targeted unfairly.
Maybe the real reason people are leaving the sport is not so much the cost as those who they are playing with and against. I have noticed a change in paintball. When I started we had a word for the guys who would act like dicks we called them paintball jerks and there were not too many of them but now you see it all the time. You go to a rental field and you see guys lighting up newbies and getting off on it. You see guys berating woodsball players because they dress in camo and use a BT or Tippmann.
There is also a new trend in paintball where people don’t seem to want to get hit anymore, not that we have ever wanted to be hit. I am not talking about guys wiping I am talking about guys who get tagged out and then never come back because they didn’t like getting hit.
Maybe I am just ranting but that’s my job. I might be wrong maybe people are leaving paintball because it is too expensive but I doubt it. I think there is a bigger problem and paint prices are a small part of it.
I’m actually quite surprised that the purpose behind the “Save Paintball” movements is about prices! I had always assumed it was a support network. That’s disappointing. I’m worried that these are the same kind of players that would be enticed to go to the .50 cal based purely on the cost of the ball, not realizing that they’ll just end up shooting more in the end. I’m willing to bet that the ones who started this movement are most likely young kids who pay for the sport themselves and have never experienced a time when the “regular” players at a field were entitled to “special” paint prices of eight cents a ball, when fields retailed paint at 12 cents a ball, and the wholesale price was five to six cents a ball. How about the guys who used to pay 25 cents a ball? They would shoot maybe 200 rounds in a day max! Now some guys will shoot that off just in the chrony range. If you look at the trend over the years; the cheaper the paint gets, the more we shoot.
Attitude and cost I’d say are the two biggest factors when it comes to players leaving. Attitudes have definitely changed over the years and we were talking about this on another forum. It doesn’t help when you got companies named “Hater”, or Virtue making Halo back-plates with “Cheat to Win”, and I remember back when Evil had a sticker that basically said “Wipers never die”. This just contributes to the attitude of anything goes and win at any cost. Any victory that you have to cheat to obtain is no victory at all. Shame it’s come to this. When I started playing you didn’t dare attempt that sort of attitude or your own team would shoot you out and find yourself without a group to play with. Perhaps it’s time to return to those days? The overall expense depends on how deep you get into it, and how loose your trigger finger is. Pump is a great alternative for an inexpensive way to play while developing some skills that will further your semi play. Games with limited paint. Muzzle-loading. There’s many alternatives to a day of “spray-and-pray”, but a lot of the young players only learn to keep pulling the trigger as fast as possible until the law of averages takes over and you eventually hit something.
Players have to accept that Paintball is an expensive sport. How expensive it can be, depends on them.
Yes, much has changed. Ive been playing for about 11 years now. Ive seen a drastic change
in pricing, the industry, people and the sport as a whole. Some has been good, some has been
bad.
Who is to blame? We are. Every paintball player and person involved in the business.
The more popular the sport becomes, the more people join it, the more of a demand there
is for certain products. More demand means that there is room to make more of a profit
off of some things.
With all the people joining the sport in the last decade or so, there has been segregation
between the guys who played in the bush (The original paintballer, in my opinion.) and
speedballers. Speedballers play to compete, and we all know that in competition there is
a LOT of cheating. Look at baseball players, football players and other athletes. Some
juice up to get that extra bit of push that could win the game. Speedkiddys wipe, pretend
not to get hit, etc. Bushballers are just in it for the fun. So, again it is our fault.
This sport has become so populated that there was bound to be segregation sometime, its
in human nature.
And on with the price issue. The speedball industry has grown vastly in the last few years,
and the reason stuff like paint has shot up in price is because speedballers made it
VERY apparent to the paint manufacturers that they could very easily blow 6-8 cases of
paint in one day, the industry saw this and acted accordingly by marking the paint up.
Of course, this hit the bushballer too. Now some of us bushballers have our etriggers
and crazy a5′s that fire at 25bps (my a5ump can do 28, i do however keep it on semi unless
im fired on with auto) but we dont throw paint into the air just to see how long of a
rope we can make. Of course, this has become a predicament for people who play exclusively
magfed/pistol/pump or semi w/tac cap or smaller hopper. Paint has gone up, but they hardly
use any paint anyways. Some fields require you to buy a case of paint, now this pump player
buys a case of paint, uses maybe 300 balls for the day, or less.
Of course, paint isnt the only issue. With the ushering in of the speedball industry,
came ‘High End Electro-pneumatic markers’ which just for that term, are automatically
worth $800-$1900 out of the box, thats before they put their fancy dye rotor loader
and crazy boards in there. And thats without their crazy 300 dollar CF tank. Now
with this influx of EXTREMELY expensive markers, that are effectively space guns
that you cant DO ANYTHING to, what we before recognized as just your run of the mill
marker (Tippmann, Sheridan, CCI, PMI, etc) is now branded ‘Low end mechanical’ And
still prices jumped on these ‘Low End Mechanical’ markers because of the speedball
markers.
The speedball industry in itself has had a huge impact on the WHOLE sport, its had
an impact on attitude, playing style, sportsmanship, etc. I could go on for hours.
But, as much as we would LOVE to blame speedball for all of our problems, we cant.
Ultimately, its our fault as paintballers. Us as a whole, bushballers, speedballers,
its everyones fault. When something becomes this popular, there is room to expand,
charge more and exploit everything possible. Really, its like any industry out there
as an industry grows, things will get more expensive with demand, and there will always
be the little guys who are unseen, unheard and undercharge for everything just to keep it
fair, however these guys dont make a profit.
There is a guy out here in Edmonton, his name is Wes. He runs Deer Lodge Paintball, he makes JUST enough money to break even. He charges next to nothing for stuff in his proshop, or paint. He makes no money out of this sport, but he loves it so much that just seeing people play and enjoy themselves is payment enough for him. Guys like this will continue
to be unseen, unheard and unknown. However it is guys like this and many others who are
quietly keeping the sport alive.
Thats my piece on this issue.
I don’t know Bob. When I started an entry level marker would set you back $500 and a case of paint was about $100 for decent paint. If anything prices have come down you can buy a decent entry level marker kit for under $200. Not to mention mid grade paint from a proshop is around $70 much less than the $100 when I started.
People have a Walmart mentality and think everything needs to be cheaper than cheap. I don’t have a problem paying what we do it is less than before but enough to keep our stores and fields open.
I have no issue paying more for stuff either, infact i blow so much money indiscriminately
on paintball its stupid. I dont even look at the price tag anymore. Im just goin by what
i saw livin in victoria. I know TNT paintball used to sell paint for cheaper than they
do now. I paid… i think it was 180 back in the day for a tippmann 68 special, new.
TNT was charging 60 bucks/case at the time if memory serves. Im not worried about pricing
at all, I was just trying to set some logic to the increases that ARE happening.
I’m not willing to lump a large part of the blame on speedballers either. I’ve played scenario games in Alberta where I’ve seen more blatant cheating being done by the bushballers than I have by some of the speedballers.
A lot of the problems with marker speed has to do with the industry creating this need for speed. I remember back around 1999 to 2001, there as a big meeting with a bunch of manufacturers and they came to the decision to limit the speed of markers to 13 bps. The only manufacturer out of that meeting that stayed with the decision was BE (Later RM boards were capped at 13). They created the markers, they sponsor the pro teams with unlimited paint, they sling to their hearts content, and little Johnny sees this and figures that’s what he need to do to be able to compete. Now perpetuate this over the years.
Yes it’s had an impact on attitude, but we’ve also let this attitude fester and we turn a blind eye to is and consider it the “norm”.
I don’t agree with paint shooting up in price. If anything I’d say it’s gone down. I can buy a full case now for around the same price as what half a case would have cost me a few years ago.
Yes, some of the high-end tourney markers are ridiculously expensive, but they also depreciate incredibly rapidly. Year old Ego’s will sell for half of what they were new. Two-year old ones will sell for a quarter. There’s a surplus of inexpensive high-end guns available if you don’t mind something a couple of years old.
So here’s “Save Paintball”‘s latest thing on Facebook: “Ok, so lower paint price IS NOT a possible solution. What incentive can be given to players for bringing new people into the sport? Would any of you be compelled to bring a new player to your local field and receive a FREE case of paint?”
Why is it up to the field owners to reward players for bringing someone else out once, and a free case of paint??? Now i KNOW the guys running the site are young!
My reply (after someone was bitching about start up costs):”It cost too much to get started” Well who says you have to go out an buy brand new gear? You can find decent used stuff for far less if you don’t mind a marker that’s a couple of years old.
All I see so far is a bunch of crybabies bitching about something that everyone has complained about since I started in 1992. Newsflash guys: Paintball is an expensive sport! If you want to play, you’re going to have to pay. If you can’t afford it, make sacrifices. If you think Paintball is expensive, try Golf. There’s no such thing as a cheap hobby, and everything has startup costs. Suck it up!
I just don’t get it. I really don’t like you said paintball is expensive but it has gotten so much cheaper from the 90′s or what about when it all started back in the 80′s! No I think it is just another excuse for people to complain.
People are going to complain no matter what. This sense of entitlement will never go away until they’re hit with a worse situation where they’ll appreciate what they HAD rather than what they HAVE now. They’ll always find an excuse. My point was that players have always bitched about the cost. But if you love it, you suck it up and do it. I never used the 80′s as an example since I wasn’t playing back then, so I don’t know the exact costs.