This week's poll continues on the general topic of competitive paintball. Last week's poll was looking for the source(s) of the apparent decline in participation. This week VFTD wants to know what you think needs to be done to help fix the decline in competitive paintball, if anything.
What's the first thing you would do to try and "fix" competitive paintball?
The first thing you will notice is that there is no reduce entry fees or similar options related to making the events cheaper. The reason is it would skew the poll as all you lazy slackers would immediately opt for the easy answer that costs somebody else money. Most of the options might impact cost but those that apply directly don't allow you, the voter, to choose how costs are reduced so if you pick one of those options you are agreeing with the general idea that reducing costs is necessary no matter what it entails. And as usual, if you choose 'Other' and actually have something else in mind please post it up in comments and it will be greatly appreciated. (Otherwise I twist and turn at night unable to sleep wondering what 'Other' you meant when you voted.)
Here's your opportunity to solve one of the nagging problems facing paintball today and it's as simple as clicking a mouse.
Monday Poll in Review
Last week's poll was about the decline in competitive paintball participation and the one certain thing we can take from the poll is that the nearly unanimous opinion (98% - 2%) is that competitive paintball is definitely in decline. (While believing it to be true doesn't make it necessarily true that's not relevant to the poll--though it may be relevant in the real world.) 23% either couldn't make up their minds or thought it was a goulash of factors all contributing to the downturn. 21% laid the bulk of the blame on the economy at large while another 14% claimed it was simply too expensive. Add 'em up and you have 58% of the vote that attributes the decline to cost in one way or another.
The other double digit response was that there are too few new players entering the ranks of competitive ballers. Followed by it's not as much fun (9%) the new generation is too young (7%) the new formats are too demanding (5%).
Monday, November 16, 2009
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
18 comments:
Has making fields smaller been considered? Would it be significant enough to help find cheaper venues, reduce field/netting costs, and possibly speed up games?
Is reffing the single largest expense of the PSP? If so, maybe we need to go back to the bad old days... or perhaps a combination of bad old days.
Half paid refs, half team refs, and the team refs are intermixed and overseen by the paid ones?
other- wipe the slate clean, restart. have a first pro placement tourney, take the top 12/16 teams and franchise. go from there.
How about rather than having events that go from Wednesday to Sunday instead move them from Friday to Sunday. A lot of those people who have jobs or other responsibilities find it extremely difficult to have jobs involving much more than service related jobs and having employers willing to have them miss that much work.
I do understand the logistical problem that may arise but, maybe have more regional level events and then maybe 2-3 "national" level event that takes the participants who are successful at the regional event and allows them to compete against one another.
I actually rather liked the initial USPL idea of regionalizing the league, even at the Pro level, except for a couple of special tournaments a year where everybody travels to one spot.
At least until the non-paintball things become more affordable for more teams: travel and such.
The current length of events is a problem, since not only do you have to take off from work for all that time, but also you now have to spend more money eating out, more expense on rental cars, more nights in a hotel, also the longer your going to stay at a hotel the less people your going to want to have to share a room with meaning your prob going to get extra rooms.
Despite the fact that I agree that length is a problem. I chose the "other" option. I think that raising up the regional scene is the first thing that needs to be done. Regional events can provide shorter events at smaller more profitable venues. This better serves the divisional scene and will give more legitimacy to the pro and semi pro level.
These are some excellent ideas from these people. I would like to thanks you all for not just caving and saying .50cal or paint in general. Shorter events, faster game play, cheaper venues are all good options.
I voted to raise the age-limit.
18 should do it.
Competitive players must be a heck of a lot different than rec players. I definitely have more problems with the older teens and younger adults as I have with kids (10 - 12) and younger teens).
Thinking about it a little more though, the reason is probably because the younger players can't afford to be douchebags at our field. Maybe that's what's changed over the years. The affordability of douchebaggery has attracted them.
I was lazy and didn't post last time, but since you are staying with a similar topic I will. The problem with competitive paintball, and the reason why I no longer play is the cheating. The blatant full on cheating by typically "kids" whom parents paid for them to be there and pay for there gear and paint. I have no problem with 15, 16 year old or even younger competing,(I know I am in better shape and physically better) but the problem that I have is that they are the ones that I have found that go out and cheat the worst. Its an accountablity issue
You can fix competitive paintball by fixing the cheating. To do this the penalties for cheating need to much more harsh. I personally know a lot of people that grew very tired of the cheating aspect and unaccountability that most of these people face when they did cheat. When cheating became an accepted thing and was then practiced is when competitive paintball started to go down hill.
The idea of shorting the events sounds nice, but then there will be those who complain about there 5th match in a day and lose and say if they had been fresh they wouldn't of lost.
This is all from an ex-paintballer whom is very bitter towards aspects of this game.
I don't mind kids playing, but I feel they should play in 'kids games' on the first and last Saturday of the month. As an adult, I don't want to shoot, or get shot by, a little kid, while spending my disposable income.
The 'kids games' should be subsidised, with lower velocities and an affordable 'all-inclusive' half-day package including 300 balls
Keep them separate. Grown-ass men often go to play paintball to get away from their own kids. They don't want to listen to someone elses kids blarting all day.
"Fixing" cheating by harsh penalties does not prevent cheating.
Some places cut off your hand if you steal. People still steal there.
And what's worse, if you'rye going to eject a team from a tournament for wiping on you better be certain they wiped with no ambiguity.
Zero tolerance for cheating sounds nice, but there is a gray area for a reason and many tournament players thrive in that area.
I think an approach which structures the game/rules that reduces the incentive for cheating makes more sense. Rather than cutting people's hands off because you're bitter about all those dishonorable pricks that cheated out of your place on the podium.
Missy,
There are plenty of great kids and plenty of prick kids. Plenty of fun grown ass men to hang around and a lot of them that aren't.
The problem isn't one of age but of personality type and attitude I suppose.
I disagree. I don't want to play with the kids if they're great or if they're not. I want to play paintball against my peers, against other adults.
I played with a b-day group 3 years ago, at Hollywood Sports. We all used rental guns. It was fun for a while, before a 14-16yr old kid with his DM6 started running around calling everyone 'cheaters'. In the final game I played he ran down the field, fanning his trigger, shouting "get out you f-ing cheaters". It spoilt my experience, because I wanted the group I was with to have fun, and I didn't want them to have to deal with this kind of bullshit. Some kids are great, some are not, but the only way to be sure that your adult clientalle are not bothered by them is to put them into their own game, and not allow them to play with adult groups.
I am talking about recreational play here, and I have a precedent for this kind of structure, which has actualy led to 700 U18's per month playing on 2 pre-ordained weekends per month.
ps. No, we were't cheating, this kid just got frustrated that a bunch of 'renters' were managing to shoot him out so easily, and this sparked his teenage tirade. We ended up leaving, as the alternative was to go to jail for a very long time.
Missy Q said...
"Get off my lawn!"
Seriously, god help them if they come on my lawn...
Miss Q - agreed. Perhaps we should limit paintball play to those who's brains are fully developed...(which, sad for some, may not be until age 25 or so...)
The answer for tournament play is contrary to what is intuitive: make the "cost" of entry higher and winnow the field back to the truly serious and dedicated. (Cost does not necessarily mean dollars; could mean difficulty, or higher skills required, or a longer game, or a bigger field. Wonder if some of you can figure out where this is going...)
Post a Comment