Is Paintball Dead?

Lots of discussions about this on various forums. While not dying, it seems to be shrinking a bit. Lots of places to look for reasons, but a lot of people tend to agree that the high cost of paintball along with the recession are hitting it hard as it is essentially disposable income spending. Then you take into account the mentality of "more is better" and you start to alienate the beginners who think they can't compete because they don't have an $800+ marker that shoots ropes of paint and you kill your next generation of players off.  Lots of angles on this.

Well now that I think about it I think the big reason why it's gone under out here is because most of the kids who got into it here were posers who just wanted to look cool by having all of the gear and crap. I don't even think they cared much about playing.

I said I played years ago. Infact I used to have an account on this forum with alot of posts.  Now I want to play again because I want to play, not to spend money on crap so I can show it off which is what alot of kids do, at least where I'm from.

What do you mean? Are you saying you keep your paintball guns in a display case in your living room?

Edited by Maiden Hell - 26 July 2011 at 1:27pm

What kind? I don't think I'll be able to get back into it this year unfortunately :(

Awesome, I just have a 98c with response trigger, I used to have a 14" smart parts linear barrel but it got lost somewhere. Going to mod the hell out of it once I get some scrilla.

Totally.

In Kentucky I deal with or have dealt with paintball stores and fields and work or worked with a good portion of them. There is only 2 fields in the northern part of the state now and only 1 paintball pro shop left. over the past 3 years we have lost 4 fields and 6 stores. I do work at one of the 2 paintball fields that are left and they are a small field that specializes in first time players... Most of there players are all rental gear users and there sales are up right now. We are fairly busy. So That makes me think that there are a lot of people trying the sport out. However I think that the older player base is laying back or shrinking at least in this area. The newer players need be pushed to keep on playing pick up a marker and play!

Cost has a ton to do with it. Paintball has always been a fringe business at best. Combine the recession with the fact that the sport is expensive and you get fewer people being able to afford playing. You've got to remember that paintball really is still in its early years. The first game was played only 30 years ago, and it took 10 years for the game to even remotely resemble what we see now.

What you DO see a lot of is the decline of brick-and-mortar paintball stores (Thanks internet warehouse sales! Sure you can sell tanks, but can you fill them?) and fields. Rec fields especially have taken a hit recently as most people will gladly forego the $25 walk-on fee and the likely hood of Field Paint Only to play in woodlands for free with friends. In the area around DC, the fields that have survived the best are those that sit heavily on the speedball end of things. Pev's has turf fields, and PAP up near B-More has more than half of its acreage given over to inflatable fields. The reason they do better than straight rec fields? Very few people can afford to shell out the necessary funds for a full set of PSP-grade bunkers and thus, people who are into that aspect of the sport are more willing to pay the entrance fees, etc.

Paintball may have slowed in growth, but I don't think you'd see so many different Tippmann markers out there if the sport wasn't still growing. Even WGP has more markers in production now than it did 4 years ago.

tallen702 wrote:  Even WGP has more markers in production now than it did 4 years ago.

I don't beleive WGP is producing markers anymore.