Actually some of the items today are in the paintball news. Seriously, who would notice if this stuff wasn't posted someplace, right?
What has two Home bunkers at each end of the field, a wide open snake side and wire 50s that don't deliver any sure eliminations? If you said the PSP MAO layout award yourself an imaginary gold star 'cus you is correct. If you don't want to get mired in a series of low scoring contests best figure out how to close points out. On the plus side the snake plays, well, like a snake. Go figure.
A new store based in Minnesota has opened serving the online paintball community called Mecca Paintball. It is (as it turns out) the brainchild of a guy I know, like and would identify as a smart, resourceful and enterprising individual but I am wondering about the name, Mecca Paintball. While it's true that Mecca has English meaning apart from the name of the holy city of Islam what's the first thing most people are likely to associate Mecca with? Okay, you have a point. Nobody ever went broke underestimating the ignorance or stupidity of the public but even so. At best it's just a name but at worst it may put some people off. Or am I reading too much into it?
Lane Wright of the PSP is threatening to set-up an Old Skool 10-man field. Make sure you tell him what you think of that idea. I'm guessing it's unlikely to be one of those if he builds it he expects y'all to come kinda dealios. More like if you wanna play be prepared to pony up an entry fee. Sure it sounds cool but I suspect it'll work out about as well as the UWL. (Ouch, that was harsh.)
Speaking of the UWL--which I like (conceptually) nearly as much as the idea of resuscitating 10-man, even if only for a weekend--is anybody ever really gonna play? Kudos to Tom Cole for all the time and effort he's put into the league but it doesn't seem like it's growing. Which is, I suppose, okay as long as Tom wants to keep doing it and there are a few teams that want to play. But I can't help wondering why not? It seems like it draws mostly former (or current) tourney players but not all that many. Do you like the idea of the UWL? Have you ever played an event? What's it gonna take to make the UWL truly popular?
HydroTec (the water paintball) is making some noise--again. Supposedly this past Thursday there was an opportunity for the public to test a grade of HydroTec paintballs called Element. HydroTec is also claiming that after spending July in testing they will be ramping up limited production in August. (If I recall correctly they made a similar announcement last year.) Limited distribution appears to be targeting commercial paintball fields. Has the future of the paintball finally arrived and does anybody care?
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
54 comments:
UWL is failing, because they are not successfull at drawing in the scenario crowd, and the greater part of the tournament population today, have never seen a field with a tree on it.
So, they have positioned themselves inbetween the two populations they propose to be the crossover between, without gaining much interest from either.
IMHO, they need to make their image much more "war like", so that a greater percentage of the scenario/milsim crowd wants to take part.... which will also be good for the serious side of tournament paintball, because we will eventually see more players graduate through UWL into "real paintball" - once they have learned it can actually be fun to compete ;)
Nick's reasoning seems sound. The UWL does seem to be in a land somewhere between to two extremes, but very few actually want to tread into that territory. Do you want to play tournament paintball or do you want to play bushball? Players have always seems to congregate at both ends of the spectrum, but only a few are looking for something in between. There is a reason things evolve. Forcing de-evolution rarely works.
The Hydrotech fan base seems to be waning. What? It's not going to be cheaper than all the other good paint out there? Yeah, I don't recall them ever saying it would be. Maybe if the product is better and enough other companies can get into the market to compete, the price will come down. Not sure how the patents will figure into that though.
Hydrotec does not need to be cheaper to compete - at least not if we are comparing ball to ball price off the factory.
What should exite shop and field owners, is the promise of vastly increased shelf life - because that will in itself decrease purchase prices.
Just look at your own field Reiner.... if it was absolutely safe for you to purchase a full years consumption in one shipment, imagine what that would do to your purchase price.
And on top of that, a product which holds up far better to heat/cold and humidity, so that you have less quality issues outside the peak season.
That is, ofcourse, if what has been advertised is true ;)
The thing I am very interested in seeing, is how a field looks after a full season of using Hydrotec, since the shells seem to have a very long half life.
I imagine fields possibly developing a rodent problem, with 100s of pounds of corn starch spread around the field without disappearing... but I might be entirely wrong here and it may be a non-issue :)
Hmmm...Nick, I don't think you are going to find a lot of field owners buying a year's worth of paintballs at once. First, there is the initial investment, that most aren't going to have (I know I don't), then there is the consideration of the cost of the money used for the initial investment. Then comes storage space. It's not free either.
Also, the difference between buying one skid of paintballs and 10 skids or even 20 or 30 skids is probably not as much as most people think it is. I really think you are making much more out of the shelf life of the paint than is warranted.
Currently I buy one skid at a time for our little field. I could buy three or four, but I don't because there is virtually no price difference and the storage space for 3 or 4 is not available to me. To obtain the extra storage would probably offset the savings, so what's the point? Cash flow is always a consideration for a small business.
Scenario paintball players won't play UWL because UWL keeps score. The whole reason so many people play scenario is no one can tell how bad they suck at paintball.
Maybe if UWL added costume points and some awards they might do better.
Scenario players play scenario paintball because that’s what they think is fun. I don’t think it matters whether they are better or worse than the average competitive player. The point being, they play for fun and most are not interested in making the commitment needed (in time and finances) to play tournament paintball.
I’m sure the UWL attracted a few scenario players, but once they find out that it’s still competitive paintball and that it takes much effort and commitment to do anything but end up at the bottom of the pack every tournament, most will quit and return back to playing paintball where nothing is on the line.
Having fields that have uneven playing surfaces and being non-symmetrical doesn’t change that it’s still competitive (more serious) paintball. There are only a certain number of players who are going to want to take their paintball that seriously. Scenario players, for the most part, made their choice not to.
Just about every sport has this to some degree. Paintball is just one of the few that has the bickering. Players that choose to play competitive hockey don’t ridicule the players that play shinny hockey. Same with competitive basketball players and the guys shooting hoops at their local park court.
Competitive paintballers need to stop whining about the choices that non competitive players make. If you want more players making the choice to play competitive paintball, there has to an incentive to do so. That incentive comes in the form of less commitment needed (it doesn’t necessarily need to be less commitment in time, money is a good motivator as well). That is the only thing that will bring considerably more players onto competitive paintball fields. Roping off a field with trees isn’t going to be the deciding factor.
The UWL is quasi-failing because it's confusing as hell. It has concepts which are entirely foreign to paintball. Add 1-2 things at most that are innovative. The UWL adds all sorts of weird things with infantry, heavy gunners, snipers, scouts, hooches, swing bases, etc, rejuvinations, rockets etc. If the UWL had 2 of these innovations it would be ok. If you have to keep explaining and explaining it... well...
The flip side of this, if you've ever played a UWL, it couldn't get any bigger. It's a lot of work to run and ref the format, and they couldn't handle more teams unless they had another field and another crew of refs. And the reffing is pretty spotty as it is.
Now that I criticized the UWL I will offer up some slight criticism of your assumptions. The UWL draws a lot of guys that won't have anything to do with traditional tournaments. It brings a handful of old school tournament guys out of the wood-work, but barely enough to make up 1 team, maybe 2 at most.
The UWL actually pulls a decent amount (proportionally) of existing tournament guys. You've got guys from Viscious, Heat, Dynasty, Bains (he doesn't really count as a team does he?), Ironmen, Raiders, showing up.
In reality, I think it draws an equal proportion of existing scenario/rec type guys with a few old school ones thrown in if they can get off their butts and do something other than harp about the good old days (most can't so they don't).
The problem is just the rules... when explaining it, there are too many times you have to say... "Oh ya, and there is also this...and this... and this.."
I feel confident in saying the UWL is how paintball should be played, if you could remove most of the rules. What I mean by that is, if you go to a local recreational field. You should not be playing "capture the flag" but should be playing "capture and hold the swing bases" and the field can have rejuvenation periods for its players.
If the UWL has a future, it's in creating a format which can be applied down to the rec level, and somehow creating and selling packages to the fields.
If the local paintball field wants to have a "tournament" section of his field, he mows the grass, goes to sup'air and buys some bunkers. I would suggest that a viable future for the UWL would be to try "franchise" (or really create product kits) that they can sell to fields to run the UWL type concept to recreation players.
Naturally, they'd have to loose all of the sniper, heavy gunner, rocket stuff (maybe they could even keep the rocket if the rec field provided one to each team). But I can see paintball on the recreation level being played this way -- multiple swing bases with rejuvenations.
I'd also add that a "capture and hold the swing bases with rejuvenation periods" is a great way to stage and prepare recreational players to move up the ladder into tournament paintball.
It makes rec ball more meaningful and competitive, which is a natural transition to tournament ball.
Right, and you said it yourself: The reason Scenario players don't think the UWL is fun is because the UWL keeps score.
If the UWL didn't keep score, no one would know who was always at the bottom of the heap. Which is exactly why so many players find scenario paintball so attractive - they can go out on the field (or stay in the staging area showing off their fierce milsim setup) and no one knows they are not contributing.
Hey, not all scenario players are into the milsim junk. I wish they'd rid the sport of that crap. All it does is gives fodder to the people who think paintball is militia training the next time there is a shooting and a picture of the shooter turns up with a Tippmann 98 tricked out to look like an AK-47.
Ya, we should all look like guys in derder videos. That way the media won't ever have the chance to link violence to paintball.
Oh wait...
@Anon 3:07
At least the guns in the derder videos are practical, without 15 pounds of extra weight from barrel shrouds, fake magazines, and tripods. I can't understand 'upgrades' that make performance worse (you know, like lugging around and extra 15 pounds). Something that looks like a real military weapon is a lot scarier to the "ban everything" moms out there than a typical speedball gun.
The Derder guns aren't any more practical than the milsim ones. In fact, I can hammer in nails with some of the milsim ones, which would actually make them more 'practical'. If I can also rob a gas station with one that would technically make them even more 'practical'. What can you do with a speedball gun other than play paintball with it? There. You see?
..and that extra 15lbs is just giving those tough milsim guys more of a work-out - thats a practical application too.
He meant "practical" in a paintball context, not a workout context. If I want to work out, I'll go to the gym.
Actually, what's remarkable about the derder video / batman thing is that the story DIDN'T get any traction. One hack-job piece for a sensationalist news "outlet" and no other outlet drew a connection.
Anon 6:50 -
Wait, you mean next you'll tell me I shouldn't use my tactical gun as a hammer? WTF Missy?!?! I just placed my order and everything...
I was also looking forward to the practical benefits of cancelling my gym membership after getting to lug around this extra 3lbs of gear.
@MissyQ, you are an idiot.
Practical in the paintball sense. Does all the extra milsim junk tacked on make it a better performing paintball gun? No, it often makes it worse -- you've got extra weight you're hauling around, it's bulkier so it is more difficult to play tight and move close to bunkers.
LOL
@ anonymous who for some reason thinks he's not an idiot...;-)
There is the intimidation factor. You'd be amazed how many players cringe in fear when the Milsim player hauls out his 12 pound gun complete with tripod, scope, and folding stock. They all want him on their team, because they are afraid to go up against him.
There...practical for paintball purposes.
Whoa, I'm an idiot?
Shocker!
You didn't specify it had to be in the paintball sense. And anyway, milsim players don't 'stay tight and get close to bunkers'. Take off your blinkers holmes, they 'lay down supressing fire' & shit, and use the 'buddy system'.
You Sir, need to go get a sense of humour :)
The only players who "cringe in fear" of milsim guns are 10 year old noobs. Good players know they're carrying a two pound gun that shoots faster and more accurate than that twelve pound monstrosity, and they have no problem going up against them.
I'd only cringe in fear, when I see a dude with a double Gatling setup and a platinum creditcard ;)
"Intimidation"? From milsim guns? bahahahahahahaha
Maybe if I was a renter. Maybe.
Still lol'ing.
Wow, there's a real air of superiority in here.
I will admit that when myself and my group of friends go play milsim with our gear we do have a great time, we spend as much money as we want to (because we're grown-ass men, and we have it) and we genuinely enjoy the experience and the day-out.
However, I sometimes look across at the kids acting all gangster with their cool HK head-bands they wear to demonstrate how individual they are, with their foul language, clown outfits and ridiculous padding, and I wish I was one of them, trying to cheat against my friends because it's so cool to do so, erupting in a fit of rage on the field when things don't go my way, shooting people that have already been shot, because it's fun, and they're 'fools' anyway. Oh the joy I'm missing.
I wish that I had the time to develop a pathological hatred not only of the milsim crowd, who are 'fake-army', but also against half of my own kind, because they play with 7 players and I play with 5, and everyone knows that if you play with 7 players on your team you're a total loser.
Yeah, I can definitely see why you Speedball guys feel superior, I mean you've got everything going for you, and like you said, your guns weigh less, so fuck those other fools, right?
@Reiner, the 10 year olds and rental noobs may be intimidated by the 12 pound Milsim marker, but the experienced woodsball players are laughing at the guy behind his back.
@Missy Q,
You missed the point originally when you nitpicked about "practical" and you're missing it again. I'm a woodsball player who is not Milsim. Our style of play is closer to speedball, but it takes place in the woods. My beef with the milsim crowd is that historically, paintball has fought hard not to be seen as some sort of militia training. When someone is sporting an AK47 lookalike and talking about being a 'sniper' they undo all of that. Busybody moms are always looking for a reason to ban 'guns' and things they see as warlike -- don't give them a reason to.
In the last comment I should have said -- don't give them a reason to go after paintball. When they see a milsim gun that looks like a scary assault rifle, they aren't going to do any research, they are just going to say paintball = bad, let's ban it.
Chris Raehl is pretending to be a woodsball player just to take a side and argue.
He's back. I'm so pleased.
You call it nit-picking, I call it humour. We can agree to disagree, although I know how it was intended, as I wrote it..
I'm not going to disagree with the basis of your theory that scary guns are more likely to scare people than guns that don't look as scary. Your case is water-tight on that one.
However, as over 85% of the global market is 'woodsball/milsim', and the margins are higher in these product-lines, and the milsim guys will actually spend more money on accessories etc than they would on their marker itself, they are fundamentally more important as a revenue-stream to the industry than the speedball guys and the woodsball guys who play with speedball equipment. They generate the income that feeds tha beast, and as such, they deserve to at least be treated as equals.
We can try to exist in a world where everyone likes to consider Paintball a sport, Moms love the game and don't sweat that their kids are in any danger, and sure, we can frown at the people that make their guns look real, but don't kid yourself that it'll make a difference, or even that you have the game's best interests at heart. Milsim is the expanding market-sector and cannot be ignored. Look at the growth of airsoft and understand that much of this growth is sucked out of Paintballs' coffers. You might not like milsim guys, but the industry loves them.
The speedball guys can resent the woodsball guys, the woodsball guys can resent the milsim guys, but none of you are 'superior' to the others. The fact that you laugh at fellow 'ballers behind their backs because they don't choose the same equipment as you is more a reflection on you than on them. For real.
@MissyQ,
85% of the market may be woodsball, but a much smaller percentage of that is Milsim.
If Milsim airsoft is growing at the expense of Milsim paintball it is because the technology of airsoft (mainly the size of the ammo and the propulsion) is better suited to make more realistic replicas. In PB, unless you are using a Tiberius magazine, the replicas are compromised by tac-cap/hoppers and remote lines.
As for laughing at the 'baller with the 15 pound M60 lookalike, that's because he takes himself as seriously agg as the HK kids do with their 'gats'. Their faux-military behavior is as off-putting as the HK kids, maybe even more so since the milsim guys are usually adults while the HK kids are usually immature teenagers.
You make some reasonable points, unfortunately it's virtually impossible to distinguish between woodsball and Milsim at the point of sale, so the breakdown is muddy. On the airsoft thing I agree that Paintball is losing the fight, my point remains that there is a fight going on.
I guess the thrust of my argumant is - There are a lot of paintball participants, but they seem unwilling or unable to unify and get along. They each defend their own market-sector passionately, but hate on the others as if they're trash. I think that whole merry-go-round is extremely immature, adult or kid, and I also believe that a fractured industry is a weakened industry.
Are all the people with heavier guns really morons? I doubt it. I see morons in every color jersey, but I don't see why reasonable, literate people, such as yourself, partake of the 'we hate them because they are not like us' mentality. The people that play the PSP hate the NPPL, and vice versa, the players from the east-coast hate on the west coast guys, misim hates woodsball hates speedball etc. Seriously - where's the beef? Can't we all get along - there's a tom of other people we could hate all over, why do this to ourselves?
I confess that for me, my 'favorite sector' is the one I can earn the most out of, and right now, that's milsim. Don't mean I have to start sending hate-mail to the other guys though...
@MissyQ
My beef is that I feel the Milsim guys as portraying paintball in a negative light with the replica guns, faux military style, etc. I don't feel they are bad people or morons. They are in the minority of the woodsball players at my local field, but the guys I've talked to are nice enough.
My main issue is that I don't think that having paintball look like militia training is a direction it should be going in.
Hmmm...I though Americans, for the most part, were proud of their military. Yet Milsim is bad?
@ Missy, if all genres of paintball should be supported because we all need each other from an industry standpoint, I beg to ask the question, since much of the industry is also getting into the airsoft business, does that not mean paintball should support airsoft and vice versa? We seem to becoming one industry, instead of two separate industries or at least two very related, intertwined industries.
Reiner:
Paintball industry getting into the airsoft market, is no different from DYE getting into skiing.
You have a company manufacturing goods that only need slight tweaks, to be marketable in another industry - obviously you go for it.... it's a no brainer.
Adidas originally only made running shoes (well, back when it was called "The Dassler Brothers Shoefactory").
So, just as I don't really see skiing becoming beneficial to paintball - nor do I see airsoft doing so.
That having been said, in my view, milsimmers are really airsoft players that took a wrong turn and ended up in paintball by mistake, just like speedballers in airsoft, are really paintballers that ended up in the wrong sport.
Airsoft is far superior to paintball in terms of milsim, and paintball far superior to airsoft in terms of being a sport.
So yeah, we could be mutually beneficial - and help people find their proper "home" - but that is as far as it goes..... I don't really see the potential for a lasting relationship there :)
But hey, remember I'm into sport.... all the people out there that enjoy playing wargames, might very well see it differently ;)
"Paintball industry getting into the airsoft market, is no different from DYE getting into skiing."
I think there is a big difference. Other than Dye, I don't know of any other paintball industry player that has gone into the skiing market. However, there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of fields and stores all across the world that cater to both paintball and airsoft. Why? Because they have a lot more similarities than differences. Other than the make-up and size of the projectiles coming out of the barrel, there isn't much difference.
Sure one lends itself better to being adapted to a "sport", but that's not the point I was trying to make when referring to Missy's point that all paintball should be supported because we are stronger together, as an industry, than apart.
@Reiner
"Hmmm...I thought Americans, for the most part, were proud of their military. Yet Milsim is bad?"
A lot of American ballers see the Milsim guys as trivializing the contributions of those in the military. They are pretending that they are like military guys (some teams even have military 'ranks' for the players) when paintball is nothing like the military.
Reiner,
Airsoft has a few accessory crossovers, but different gun & ammo manufacturers. These manufacturers are not 'Paintball Industry' and so I guess that's why I don't feel they are part of Paintball.
The practical crossover is mainly at the field level - Airsoft needs venues, and because it's not a sustainable standalone field business-model (the balls are pretty-much free and impossible to regulate for FPO) they need paintball venues to share with them. Paintball field-owners typically welcome he extra cash in entries, but are mostly blind to whether this is a smart long-term choice, or whether it will end up biting them.
Because of the field crossover, some stores have started carrying the product, that is the extent of the crossover that I'm seeing - The Store thing is worrying. I am hearing that many parents would rather buy their kids the airsoft marker than the Paintball one, as it is perceived as less dangerous/painful, and a lot less messy.
I'm not in the airsoft game, so I see them as a threat rather than an ally.
And I get that some 'ballers may see Milsim as trivialising the military, it's understandable, but not defendable. Some ballers think there should be no woodsball markers at all, or even no woodsball play, but then most 'ballers don't get the big picture. They bash every paintballer that doesn't play ball the same way that they do.
More importantly I doubt that the military think that paintball milsimers are trivialising them , in fact I know that the military want kids to play paintball, and see the industry as a possible recruiting ground, as seen in the NPPL 05/06.
Let's put it this way. If you wish Milsim should go away (to airsoft), and that markers that look real should be banned as they reflect badly on our image -
What do you think would happen to Paintball if you got your wish?
Missy, because I was curious after what you wrote (and I have very little experience with airsoft) I spent two minutes googling and found that Valken sells airsoft gear, Kee sells airsoft gear, Tippmann sells airsooft gear. I only googled three names and found they were all flogging airsoft gear. I am sure there are more.
I think it's only the deep rooted dislike that some paintball field and store owners have for airsoft, that there are still fields and stores out there that aren't catering to airsoft. If they were running their fields and stores like businesses instead of an extension of their paintball hobby, I have a feeling almost all would be catering to both paintball and airsoft.
As much as some of us may dislike it, the relationship between paintball and airsoft is there and it's growing. What's the saying..."If you can't beat them, join them."?
Reiner,
I was referencing manufacturing. If paintball buys product from airsoft to sell, that's part of the airsoft industry. If we sell to them it's the other way around.
In my area, some of the local PB fields are occasionally holding airsoft events on a once every couple of months basis. Airsoft has a bit more of a renegade aspect (especially since you don't need a compressor to play and shipping is much lower on 2000 airsoft rounds than 2000 PB rounds), so the fields would do well to encourage the airsoft guys to play at a place that has built up features.
Missy, you must be really old. That is so 1970's thinking. Who manufactures anymore? You draw up a CAD plan, send it to a Chinese factory and they send you back as many container's full as you want (and can afford). :-)
Manufacturing is just a very small part of the industry. Distribution is where the money is at.
Paintballs themselves may be the exception, but with the invention of paintballs that store and travel better, if they pan out, I'm sure there will be a mega factory set up in China before we know it. It may be part owned by American interests though, so maybe the "industry" won't behurt.
But I'm getting off topic...what was the topic again?
Semantics Reiner.
We buy from them that's Airsoft business.
They buy from us that's Paintball business.
Oh, and I had to have a little chuckle at the 'Distribution is where the money is at' comment, sorry, there's around 12-17% margin in distribution. Manufacturers work on a minimum 100% mark-up. I've done both. There's definitely more money in manufacturing, by a mile.
Yeah, but in distribution it's all about volume, turning your inventory over. That's why they don't need the high margins. They tell me grocery stores survive on 1% markup (although I don't totally believe it). The point being, they turn their inventory over at an incredible fast rate and can survive on the low margins.
Average operating costs of big business is 12%, and they work on 5% profit - that's your 17 points minimum margin. Typically anyone that works on less than 12 points loses money, unless they are online only. The problem with high volumes is that they go away in a competitive market place very quickly. In Canada a good example would be Underground Productz. They had a great 2011, awesome volumes at a low %, and then they lost all their volume (like ALL of it) to their competition once they lost the Procaps deal they had (because Richmond bought it back). High volume low margin is tough business. UP will be lucky to last the year, they have already branched into Retail and Airsoft to keep their doors open.
"The problem with high volumes is that they go away in a competitive market place very quickly."
Yes, I've tried telling a few field owners that over the years. Many of them are no longer around to talk to. :(
Greetings from California! I'm bored at work so I decided to check out your site on my iphone during lunch break. I really like the knowledge you present here and can't wait
to take a look when I get home. I'm amazed at how fast your blog loaded on my mobile .. I'm
not even using WIFI, just 3G .. Anyhow, good site!
Take a look at my blog post - Jamika
Apprеciatе thіѕ рoѕt.
Let mе try it out.
Also visit my website - Forex Brokers Compared and Ranked | ForexBroker.info
What's up friends, nice paragraph and nice arguments commented at this place, I am really enjoying by these.
My webpage: zulutrade
Ι lοvе it when folks come tοgеtheг and ѕhaгe vieωs.
Great site, сοntinue the good work!
Have a look at my web page :: pikavippii
Awesome things here. I'm very happy to look your post. Thanks so much and I'm having a look forward
to touch you. Will you please drop me a e-mail?
Look into my web-site ... custom jerseys
Post a Comment