Industry Momentum

Is is just me, or does it seem to others that the paintball industry as a whole as been becoming stagnant after what was a relatively short burst of ingenuity in the late 90's early 00's?

From 1980-2001, we saw the change in markers from the nelson system to the tippmann inline system, the mag blow-forward design, the re-birth of the nelson system from kingman and WGP, the adaptation of electronics to the same valve system by ICD and WDP, and finally the spool-valve of the Matrix series of markers. That's a lot of technology in markers alone for a mere 20 years. Not to mention the fact that paintballs have become more specialized to the types of environments in which the sport is played and vary according to the needs of the player. Clothing has gone from cammo and motocross gear to cammo and paintball-specific tournament uniforms. Loader technology has advanced from 10 round tubes to optical and audial sensor equiped hoppers. And the 12-gram co2 cartridge has been replaced first by bulk tanks and now by cheap and effective HPA/N2 tanks.

What I saw from my four years in college alone would lead me to believe that these past 6 years would have seen far more innovations and advancement of technology based on the past trends. But much has stayed the same since I quit spending every day working with, selling, and playing paintball. Tank pressures and sizes are the same, the prices are stable. Markers still follow the same designs from 5 years ago. Either Nelson, Tippmann, or Matrix (AGD has aparently dropped off the face of the earth). Hoppers still use the same basic feeding system. And the clothing hasn't changed a whole lot. The funniest part of all of this is, the masks have actually REVERTED to older models! V-Force's wide-lense format is a throwback to the old B.E. masks. And JT pro-flex masks habe become a standard while the proteus is nowhere to be seen.

The industry simply seems to have stagnated, or at least lost a lot of it's momentum. I just wonder what it will take for that momentum to pick back up again.

tallen702 wrote: Is is just me

More or less, yeah

This is an open ended discussion everyone, so please, chime in! No right or wrong answers.

Boss_DJ wrote: it needs to be cheaper

i agree, an angel is not worth 1,500$ when it doesnt shoot any farther or more accurate then my tippmann, faster but thats about it.

Boss_DJ wrote: it needs to be cheaper

  Seriously. I know they say that if you want a cheaper sport play football or something, but I see the fact that, while prices of nearly every other technology have fallen in comparison to the quality and sophistication of the product, paintball products haven't really as probably one of the biggest signs of stagnation. I realize paint is a lot cheaper than it was back in the 80's but paint prices haven't really fallen much for probably the past decade....Same with markers and other equipment, especially on the higher end.

  Paintball as a sport has seen some progression, at least in the pro circuit, as I see the current Xball format and the general presentation of televised tournament paintball as probably about ready for mainstream, if in need of a little polishing. The technology...not so much.


Edited by .Ryan - 04 December 2006 at 7:00pm

I personally fell off paintball a lot because the only field within 50 miles closed because they weren't making money.....It's pretty hard for these small field operators to keep their prices too low.

I keep telling my girlfriend that I'm going to get some free government money from Mathew Lasko and open a new field down here. I've got so many awesome ideas, and with a huge section of the state not being serviced....I think I could do well....

the paint itself needs to be cheaper. I can afford the gun once now I need money for paint.

Razgriz Ghost wrote: the paint itself needs to be cheaper. I can afford the gun once now I need money for paint.

depends on the field you go to. everywhere ive been to on long island paint is always 100 a case, field paint only. yet you go to some places in SC,NC, PA, etc, paint is a lot cheaper.

as for the industry, i think all the new angels and other electros that make one minor change in their markers every year and claim it almighty against the last years model is retarted, and it looks like tippmann is starting with it too with the custom pro and x7....you could easily take a 98c/m or a5 and upgrade it....they could probably find a way to make that fire selection on the x7 an upgrade

Enos Shenk wrote: Business gets in the way. Innovation is discouraged when some money-hungry grabasses like smart parts will sue you and shut you down over some overblown patent claim.

I agree with Enos.

While I'm sure there are many other reasons... this is what I believe contributed most to any degree of stagnation.

Big names got bigger. Little guys got stomped.

Even if someone small did manage to develop something new and did not face the threat of lawsuit... would they be able to compete with a less innovative product pushed on by the big guys?    Paintball is a volume business... you need to sell A LOT of something in order to make a profit. For a small company, competing with the marketing/hype ability of a big company is almost impossible, no matter how good the product is.

A lot of small companies that were indeed innovative went under, simply because the volume sales weren't there. Made worse by companies that weren't diversified and tended to stick with one specific market.

So if you're intent on being innovative and creating something great... if you cannot foresee selling umpty-thousand of them in a relatively short timespan before the next something great comes along, it isn't worth the time, effort, expense and legal headaches.




Edited by ShortyBP - 04 December 2006 at 11:18pm

And the cost hasn't been stagnant at all.

Look at how much an electronic marker will cost you these days compared to the days of old. Someone could outfit themselves with a real nice setup for a fraction of what it would cost you for something similar only a few years ago.

Paint costs have definitely gone down in the past decade.   As for FIELD paint, different story... fields need to keep up with the rising costs of overhead.