I can't help but remember what O.S. told me a few years ago at the Tippmann World Challenge players party, that he foresaw that the sport was going to burn itself out in a relatively short period of time.

Now the sport has fallen into the morass of corporate games and dirty tricks, the players spend their time tearing each other down because they don't agree with each others' style of play, and the "founding fathers" are walking away.

Tippmann has been sold, Bud Orr sold out, Tom Kaye recently got out, Glenn Palmer is at least in the process of getting out.

Is it over?

Has paintball "jumped the shark"?

It's all just so depressing.

Has me thinking about going back to golf as my regular pastime ...

Here is a quote from Tom Kaye posted on http://www.automags.org - www.automags.org regarding his feeling on the current state of the sport:

Well, ten years ago there were two fields where I live.  Now there are about a dozen fields, indoor and outdoor, within easy range.

Ten years ago, you had to go to proshops to buy paintball stuff.  Now you can get A-5s at K-Mart.

Ten years ago, people were embarassed to admit they played paintball.  Now it is a popular corporate event.

Seems like it's doing all right to me.

rockerdoode wrote: wow...people say they don't  like you...i think I know why now...

Let's pretend to just a second that your opinion about me matters ...

<whew> ... Thank God THAT's over ...

Ariakon_Eagle wrote: No, its a time for the new. As the "founders" leave, new leaders will rise. Its just a depressing time because we just got out of what I see as the "Golden Age" of paintball. And even if the sport goes back to its "Caveman Age" we will still play. We will still enjoy the sport. Paintball has risin above the thought of being "violent" or "dangerous" and we can rise above this depressing time. All sports have their depression. We will come back. We will rise again.

Thank you.

It's nice to see an intelligent response that some real thought went into.

No hway I think you are dying. Not the sport.

I wont be at your funeral.

hwayhzrd wrote: Ariakon_Eagle wrote: No, its a time for the new. As the "founders" leave, new leaders will rise. Its just a depressing time because we just got out of what I see as the "Golden Age" of paintball. And even if the sport goes back to its "Caveman Age" we will still play. We will still enjoy the sport. Paintball has risin above the thought of being "violent" or "dangerous" and we can rise above this depressing time. All sports have their depression. We will come back. We will rise again. Thank you. It's nice to see an intelligent response that some real thought went into.

Someone has to be intelligent here some where. This forum has like 15,000 people. Someone is bound to have an IQ over 50....But I expect one of the older members to make an excellent responce as well.

Gatyr wrote: No hway I think you are dying. Not the sport. I wont be at your funeral.

Nope, I am in perfect health, sorry to disappoint you.

Then again we are ALL dying from the moment we are born.

This is a very depressing thread. I think im going to cry.

Homer J wrote: Paintball isn't dying, as in dwindling in size. In fact, it's just the opposite. The downside to that is that greedy corporations are manhandling it now.

That's kinda what I was getting at ... it's now just another "product".

Sure, statistically, it's huge, but now the scramble is on to grab up as many properties as companies can get their hands onto, and now the sport is becoming sanitary, homogenized and "all marketing, no real teeth."

The innovators are heading the opposite direction in a hurry.

In far too many ways, it's not "our" sport anymore ... we are simply wallets with legs, just like we are in the eyes of any other industry.

Also, I find it interesting that instead of getting a dialogue going, people want to attack me for making this thread.

Didn't this be a place where we could have real discussions about ANY topic?

Maybe I should have made a "this or that" thread, or a "who would win this fight" thread, so I didn't rock the boat and make anyone uncomfortable ...

†Sniper† wrote: Playing with good friends in the woods behind our houses, with a post-game BBQ to share stories over, that's what paintball is all about. That has not been touched.

As for that part of it, I could not agree more.

The comraderie is what keeps me coming back.

B2n 7h3m!!!!!

-m3

hwayhzrd wrote: In far too many ways, it's not "our" sport anymore ... we are simply wallets with legs, just like we are in the eyes of any other industry.

This is true in many ways but not in my parts. I am still recognized at the proshop. When I go to the fields they know I am there alot. Maybe the big businesses think of us wallets but not the fields and small proshops. I have been going to one store since it started as a small store. Now they have a big store and two infield stores.

Maybe it's me..

Yes it is.

Paintball is no longer a game by the players, for the players.

Corperations got involved and saw the profit in making it as big as they could so they invented Speedball. Now they can cram more feilds into smaller areas, and now they can whore it out on TV. To be "accepted" as a speedball player you no longer can just get by on what a player of old had. You need a jersey and a superfancy mask and a sock hat and a 18 pod harness and paintball pants and special shoes. You cant just use any gun, you have to use the $900 super paint spraying hose of chrome to use 100x as much ammo as before.

All of this costs alot, And people pay for it all. Big Buisness sits back and smiles as people gobble it up.

Paintball got pimped out and will go the way of the skateboard. Hot for a while, really conglomed, and then go back underground to sleep.

†Sniper† wrote: That's the thing, there is no next generation of innovators forthcoming. When was the last time any truly unique technology came out? The Halo is the only thing that comes to my mind.

Exactly.

And according to the Tom Kaye statement on the AO boards, Odyssey (who created the HALO) is barely hanging on by the skin of their teeth. That would help explain the marketing deal with Empire.

Innovators used to have free reign in paintball.

I know that Enos has had tons of equipment ideas, but has said that trying to do something with them would probably get him sued.

The big companies are basically creating a "closed shop" in terms of getting new ideas off the ground. If they can't get their fingers into it, you can forget it ever seeing the light of day.

Please don't get me wrong. I love paintball as much as anyone. I want it to be popular. I want it to be huge.

What I don't want is for the sport to become a travesty just so people in a fancy building somewhere can look at their quarterly reports to see how much of a bonus check that a sport they could care less about is racking up.

It's our sport, not the corporate raiders' ...

I seem to remember that Brass Eagle/Viewloader was the company that sued Odyssey, not S.P.

Good points, evil chicken.

I hope that things work out well in the end, as your post suggests.

I do believe, however, that we as paintballers as well as consumers, need to stop being so apathetic about how the sport is progressing.

Only by staying involved and safeguarding the progress of the sport can we make sure that happy ending is a possibility.

It's what you make of it.  I'm leaning twords speedball and still like big games.  I really don't care to worry to much about the big end of the subject.

As long as I can sling at reasonable prices at a good field it's all good.

I think they should take away the high end markers, give everyone a stock tippmann and let everyone play. Make the game the way it was started. A marker that does not shoot very fast, with a low feed rate. Make it just plain skill. No expensive barrels or anything. There we will have the kind of game that started it all. People won't lose their interest in paintball just because a low end marker beat a high end marker, because everyone has the same marker. This is just a thought, but wouldn't it be fun to play it the way the real fathers made the game.

I read an article once saying that two guys were mad at each other so they found a way to shoot paint at each other. They weren't mad after that. That is how paintball started. It was just a game, maybe to get even with someone or maybe just to have some fun.

Somewhere, there is a buggywhip maker wondering where all of its employees and customers went...

You got it, Admiral!

I am far too hooked to walk away from this sport, really.

Thank all of you who have thus far given serious responses to this topic.

As long as there are still people out there who still believe in the game and what it should stand for, nothing can kill paintball off.

However, there is much that we can do to help keep it on the correct path, and we need to align our forces and keep the message out there.

Namely, that we love this silly game, and we don't want it corrupted just for the sake of a few $$$.

There is plenty of opportunity to make money without killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

AdmiralSenn wrote: ...Properly planned, it would take almost no skill to destroy the other team...

I agreed with alot of this until you said this.   The skill is in the planning and execution.   20 BPS doesn't scare me anymore... you deal with it and run through, around, under it.

As for the initial question, the sport is in fact growing.   As it grows it is experiencing its share of growing pains.   The "old guard" is just that now.   Old.   It is their time to retire, regardless of what field people are in, after the amount of years they have worked, they deserve the rest.   So basically, I don't see Tom Kaye and Glenn Palmer's retirement as a signal of doom.

While I agree that the corporate involvement has hurt the "old ways."   What truly is hurting paintball is the new players attitude.   You can't attract more interest to the sport with these morons that are out "Noob Hunting."   If you came out and try something new and were embarrassed at work or school because of 3 welts on your neck from some retard out "mowin' muppets," would you want to go back?   Of course not.  

The sport need embassadors as much as players.   I do place a little blame on the old guys for not prepping new people with the knowledge and heart that they put into the game.   In a perfect world every new player would be just like the Greg Hastings Paintball Game and would start out with a low level, slow, inaccurate marker and no skill and gradually build up on both.   But that is not how it is going to be.   You are going to see first time players show up with DM5s and 3 boxes of Ultra Evil and it is up to us to teach them the game.   As was mentioned earlier, we are the "Old Guard" now.   The fate of the sport rests in our hands.   You can either quit, sit back and watch things fall apart or get active and teach people about the SPORT... the rest will come.

I didn't vote in the poll, I think the answer is still out there.   Everyone here can make a difference.

hwayhzrd wrote: Also, I find it interesting that instead of getting a dialogue going, people want to attack me for making this thread. Didn't this be a place where we could have real discussions about ANY topic? Maybe I should have made a "this or that" thread, or a "who would win this fight" thread, so I didn't rock the boat and make anyone uncomfortable ...

Its made it to 4 pages. If I posted this on IOG or pbvids or somewhere else, I would get 16 year olds giving me cliched reasons as to why it isnt, and then get flamed.

Thats why I like this forum more than any other.

hwayhzrd wrote: Gatyr wrote: No hway I think you are dying. Not the sport. I wont be at your funeral. Nope, I am in perfect health, sorry to disappoint you. Then again we are ALL dying from the moment we are born.

Does this guy sound goth/depressed/suicidal to anybody else?

†Sniper† wrote: Playing with good friends in the woods behind our houses, with a post-game BBQ to share stories over, that's what paintball is all about. That has not been touched.

Sniper is still true here. playing in the backyards will stay true it just that huge companies are now taking over where i believe hway is getting at. The true founders of this sport are leaving. which is what hway is talking about not that the sport is dying but the origanals are dying. the people who have been in it since the beggining are leaving.

I dont know about everyone else that plays, but where I live its cold from December-Mid March.  Paintball tends to slow down around here in the winter. It may seem like its dwindling to nothingness but come spring your ears will be filled with the sound of compressed air being discharged in a rapid burst of fire.

i agree with Sniper, I never go play with out calling up one of my friends first, the other day me and my firend went to the field, there was this guy who was having problems with his BKO, so i helped him and played alot of the games that day with him or aginst him
and i dident even know his name for that matter

paintball wont die, u have some of the older people in the sport retiring, which is fine, think about it they lived out a dream, turned a sport that at one time was almost non-existant to the whole world playing, so they lived out their dream, most of them have family to go to also

and who says that these new guys that are taking over, wont do just as good a job as their for fathers, hey, they may even do better

so cheer up

This seems to go into two topics. The founders of the sport leaving and the chance that the sport could be dieing. Well, though paintball is still considered new, it is old. The founders have been around for a while now. They can't live forever but their creation, paintball, will. So as they leave and die out, the sport will live on. It may hit periods of recession, but it will flourish once again. The only thing I could see truly killing it is if prices went to high. It’s already expensive and so if prices get to high only the rich and famous could afford it. Then the sport is as good as dead. 

SebastianBlack wrote:   Ok, time for me to pipe up. That is complete and utter B.S. Paintball is still a very strong and growing sport. The difference is, it is growing in areas we just didnt see 12 to 14 years ago. Who the hell thought a marker would burp out 30 rounds a second. Noone, we joked about that stuff. The same with loaders. Brass eagle was defending their intellectual property with Oddessy/Empire lawsuits. I dont agree with it, but thats how buisness is. The stuff with Oddessy happened a bit ago and why that got drug up now I'm not overly sure Tom was being a bit too dramatic. But in all honesty, the industry hasnt changed all too much. There have always been cheaters. Noone can tell me otherwise. There have always been people that wanted to shoot a little faster then the next guy, thats still the same. But Comraderie, skill, tactics. That is very much present still. I belong to a very good group of dedicated woodsball/scenario players. They play fair, their numbers have grown alot since the group started 3 years ago.The last time I played with them there were 2 13 year old girls out, it was their second time and they loved it. I see alot of old people leaving, but only for one reason. Its their time. As was said before when someone leaves, someone else takes their place. Yeah, so big companies are getting involved. Big freakin deal, paintballs will get cheaper and markers will be more readily available. I could care less if WGP is making a spyderclone, thats just a rip on WGP. Most of that paragraph he wrote, he bashed others. That in my opinion was words coming from someone who gave up. Tom Kaye was an innovator, but that spiel he rambled off really lowered the man in my eyes. How friggen old is Glenn Palmer no, No fooling he's going to retire. If he kept up he would have been out there with an iron lung playing and I would have felt almost guilty lighting him up. Budd Orr wasnt a spring chicken either. Give me a break, Tom is supposed to be someone to respect yet he just doesnt see everyone has a time. He bellied up because he didnt want to fight any longer, or he couldnt come up with a new innovation that gets his marker awake from anything smartparts can infringe on. Look at enos and admiral senn. Two kids came out with an innovation that makes a carbine viable for speedball. Yet Tom couldnt do the same. Seeing that tells me one thing. Paintball will be fine and its about damn time Tom retired if the new innovators in paintball are already popping up. Yes, sad to see him go, yes, sad to see changes on the field, but no, I know for a damned fact, paintball is not dying. Its just moving how it is supposed to as it grows from its infancy to its teen years. The King is dead, Long live the King.

I think you might have missed the message that Tom was trying to convey.  Not a big deal because Tom is not the most skilled at convery's his points right some times.

When I've talked to Tom at event's, his major concerns were always how the little man was being shut down by the big guy.  The big guy will always win because they can afford the legal bills, the little guy even when in the right will go bankrupt and have to close shop either way.

My friends and I are in the process of getting a marker out on the market for scenario players.  We would have had this marker out last year in time for Oklahoma D-Day .....  But the legal work that we have had to deal with and getting cleared up has delayed it to the present time.  And we still haven't gotten it all cleared up.

The point being, all the companies that didn't sell their buisness to the larger corporations are now looking at closing theirs doors because of the new Corporate mentality that is sweeping the paintball industry like a hurricane.

Did Tom give up???  Some will say he did and others will say he didn't.  Honestly he made a choice based on what was best for him, his family, and his other companies.

Yes, AGD is not the other company that he owns.  He just decided that it was in his best interests to leave while the going was still "good".

Before I forget...

Tom brought up the point that Airsoft is going to be a serious thorn in the paintball industries side pretty soon.

I disagreed with him on the point that the game would be totally honor driven and it would be to easy for someone to cheat.

His point was you can get the same performance out of an $500 airsoft gun as you would out of a $500 paintball gun.  And it's the $6 to $12 you spend for 3000 airsoft rounds that's going to start the move.

I conceeded on the rounds issue.  Then this x-mas I got my Nephew a C98 and all the basics to go with it......  He was more excited over the airsoft pistol he got as well.....

Does this mean paintball is dead .... I don't really think so, it's just going to be harder to get new players due to paintball and the cruel mentality I've been seeing lately but paintball players taking great delight in peppering new players and laughing at them for it.

I agree with SebastionBlack, and Enos both .

One more thought to add tho, The numbers of players involved in the sport , and their willingness to buy Hype has degraded the Game somewhat, but to our credit, the number of individuals , like Enos (and Many others), who can and have made improvements ,privately, and in a small way , will keep the sport alive , there are many out there,like Enos, (just used him as an example) , I dont always (rarely) agree with him, but I respect his skill , experience , and Dedication .

Same with each and every tinkerer out there (not to mention every honorable player that has , and continues to Help others ), WAY too many to name , we take the time to help new players , develop the equipment , skills and quality of players hitting the field .

 Yes its growing Very fast , too fast, and thats what has brought the vultures in , now it is up to us,, the old timers (if you will) to police, and influence the sport as much as we can , to mold it into a Honorable , and Clean sport that it was intended to be , I would call on all of those people , almost a Call to arms , to be there , and do what they can to see this sport evolves into what our ideal is,,, I think our "Ideal" is closer , than that of what the corporations may be, to what we would like to see , and while they control the Market , we control the Field .

 Lets make the changes in attitudes there happen , and the Domino effect will make the corporations notice , call it grass Roots , call it what you will . the game is definitly changing , but as always , Buy the product, not the Hype , lets make our "Product" better than what the Mass marketers can offer . Ya thats a tall order, but hey , guess what , we was playing when PB wasnt cool , now it is...... lets put our experience and Know-how to good use . Show the Noobs, and others how the game should be played ,,,,, Respect , Honor , Skill , and Heart !!

I have neglected to mention Many Respected players , and forumers , my apologies for that (you know who you are !) but we CAN shape the game , it just takes involvement .

Edit: I am teaching players, one by one , that RoF isnt the answer , Splat , Splat ! and for those that remain unconvinced , well , look upon the Widowmaker . mechanical , and not afraid of facing off against any $2000.00 marker .

I cant see how it would die off I mean who could pass up the chance to shoot a person

But on a sad note one of the only shops up here that fill nitro are gonna be kicking the bucket if there sales dont pick up.

I don't think the sport is dying but the basic skill of paintball is quickly dissapearing.  now any 8 year old kid with rich parents can buy this $2000 gun that shoots 30 some balls a second and walk on to a field and start shooting.  it's the people who stay in paintball with a basic 98 or a old pump that are keeping it alive.  its the people who aren't there to win or to light up newbies, the people who are there for the fun of playing the comrodarie.  I think the "founding fathers" are leaving because less and less of these people are in paintball.  There places are taken by people who cheat, cuss, and cause trouble.  the marker doesn't make the player, why do we keep forgetting that?  Most of us are caught up in getting the most accurate barrel, the fastest gun, the most sensitive trigger,  We all need to really get back into paintball the way it started.