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WARPIG Tech Talk - High End Paintguns
Paintball and the world......

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Posted by Stylez on April 01, 2002 at 17:29:18:

Ive heard much about paintball becoming mainstream on this forum..... mostly a few months back, and ive given it consider thought since then so i decided id share.

First of all, why do people feel paintball cant go mainstream? (Most responsible players feel it cant because of langauge and physical altercations, like one at skyball a participating team told me about. Must language was used and even forcibly shoving a player to the ground with the players marker occured.) The thing is that this kind of behavior is common in sports like hockey. Last hockey event i attended, a fight broke out and it recieved more cheering than the home teams first goal. A father son pair in the row behind me even celebrated the fight with enthusiasm.

But what sets paintball apart? Why cant we be apart of the scene if were every bit as safe and fights and language happen even more so in other sports than ours? The answer is simple, public opinion. The public views our game as barbaric and nothing but an excuse to play war. I know most of us tournament players dont look at it that way, but when people see us in shoot outs, especially red paint, if theyre unfimilar with the game they thing guns, violence, killing, and of course, war. Not something most promoters would dare touch. This means paintball players must expect a higher level of sportsmanship from one another.

The biggest question however must be what do we define as mainstream? To which direction do we want to take the game? I see two ways to it. The first is that we simply take up the levels of tournament to a grander scale, bigger prizes, bigger events, bigger and better fields and of course, promotion and outside the industry sponsorship. With that option the question arrises, how can a person be able to follow a favorite team should they have one? Simply, with grand size tournaments there would be too many teams to cover specifics, just very general. The other option is we move into a realm of city organized teams, similar to baseball, football, basketball, hockey, etc. This would allow for spectators very easily, wouldnt depend on specific tournament commitees and things of that nature. There are two problems however with that path. The first is getting fans in the stands to see it, assuming of course spectators would want to watch it (if not, then the whole option is for the most part dead). And the second is formatting the game play for spectator liking. Would it be tournament style? then were back where we are now with teams converging on one location, the difference being scale, promotion, and city association. Or would it be team vs team matches? But how would those run, just long games with larger teams or a series of games?

I think paintball is in a good place right now, and other than promotional support have no complaints, however, with the rapid growth of our sport recently, the possibility to is too tempting not to entertain it.

Stylez

Follow Ups:

Re: Paintball and the world...... DJacob 20:38:19 04/01/02 (6)
- The answer to this is simple Ben "Pump Scout" Kohnen 15:39:34 04/02/02 (4)
  - youre very correct but...... Stylez 18:03:52 04/02/02 (3)
    - Re: youre very correct but...... DougSeman 14:21:23 04/03/02 (2)
      - Re: youre very correct but...... Moses 07:59:52 04/09/02 (1)
        
        Re: youre very correct but...... Josh Salvi 11:46:52 04/09/02 (0)
- Re: Paintball and the world...... Tom Sparkman
  13:38:35 04/02/02 (0)

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: Ive heard much about paintball becoming mainstream on this forum..... mostly a few months back, and ive given it consider thought since then so i decided id share. : First of all, why do people feel paintball cant go mainstream? (Most responsible players feel it cant because of langauge and physical altercations, like one at skyball a participating team told me about. Must language was used and even forcibly shoving a player to the ground with the players marker occured.) The thing is that this kind of behavior is common in sports like hockey. Last hockey event i attended, a fight broke out and it recieved more cheering than the home teams first goal. A father son pair in the row behind me even celebrated the fight with enthusiasm. : But what sets paintball apart? Why cant we be apart of the scene if were every bit as safe and fights and language happen even more so in other sports than ours? The answer is simple, public opinion. The public views our game as barbaric and nothing but an excuse to play war. I know most of us tournament players dont look at it that way, but when people see us in shoot outs, especially red paint, if theyre unfimilar with the game they thing guns, violence, killing, and of course, war. Not something most promoters would dare touch. This means paintball players must expect a higher level of sportsmanship from one another. : The biggest question however must be what do we define as mainstream? To which direction do we want to take the game? I see two ways to it. The first is that we simply take up the levels of tournament to a grander scale, bigger prizes, bigger events, bigger and better fields and of course, promotion and outside the industry sponsorship. With that option the question arrises, how can a person be able to follow a favorite team should they have one? Simply, with grand size tournaments there would be too many teams to cover specifics, just very general. The other option is we move into a realm of city organized teams, similar to baseball, football, basketball, hockey, etc. This would allow for spectators very easily, wouldnt depend on specific tournament commitees and things of that nature. There are two problems however with that path. The first is getting fans in the stands to see it, assuming of course spectators would want to watch it (if not, then the whole option is for the most part dead). And the second is formatting the game play for spectator liking. Would it be tournament style? then were back where we are now with teams converging on one location, the difference being scale, promotion, and city association. Or would it be team vs team matches? But how would those run, just long games with larger teams or a series of games? : I think paintball is in a good place right now, and other than promotional support have no complaints, however, with the rapid growth of our sport recently, the possibility to is too tempting not to entertain it. : Stylez

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