General

[brycelarson]

based on conversations I had with him this spring he has no interest and will make it VERY clear that he doesn't think anyone in their right mind should look at working in the paintball industry.

[Krunk_Kracker]

Originally Posted by Painthappy

I think people understand that, and why paintballers were upset when this whole patent issue arose. The enforcements of patents shutting down the little guy... To the point where some companies were trying to enforce the fact that the guns "looked" the same.

We had a growing and booming business. Small companies were making parts, upgrades, innovations.

I mean, how many grip frames, regulators, bolts and barrels could you buy for the autococker alone??

But the patent wars came. Many companies were lost in that battle. Small, and good companies. Only a few big players were left behind, as many of the middle sized companies were gobbled up into conglomerates of unusual size.

To bring back the group mentality... Release the patents into public domain, and watch it grow. You'll quickly see people make guns, improvements, etc.

Without patent restrictions in the lowly pump world of ours, we've seen companies such make guns such as the Gargoyle, Re-release the Desert Duck as a clone, CCM keeps kicking out more amazing tournament grade guns, small batches from Dukie with his pump shotgun and revolver pistol, micro-launchers goblin with their unique air system...

In the electro world.... No real small companies to speak of. Innovation has been stifled. It's not that we can't build one, people are afraid to. We've been trying to put together an open source electro on this site. So it can be open source and free to build. But we have to make a convoluted design that doesn't infringe on anyone.

If you want to unite paintballers, release the patents into public domain. If you want to make a buck, then charge for it.

Very good post.

The more competition among business, the better the prices and product for the consumer.

[SN toter]

Originally Posted by brycelarson

based on conversations I had with him this spring he has no interest and will make it VERY clear that he doesn't think anyone in their right mind should look at working in the paintball industry.

But he IS working in the paintball industry again, at least in some capacity with his Shoebox Compressor.

Also Carter - Great post.

[Poe]

Originally Posted by Cockerpunk

the failed part of the business plan was a 10+ million dollar machining investment planning on getting paid of with sub 200 dollar vibe/sp1s in a failing economy. without mommy and daddies disposable income buying those gun ...

Their designs require such an up-front investment.
Exactly the same as any Tippmann gun.

Although the economy has stopped, they're not dumb enough to take out a loan they can't pay off quickly. The reason they failed is the same reason hundreds if not thousands of companies are currently hurting. Their business model is credit dependent and banks are not lending money.

Modern companies do not use their own money to purchase the parts or pay the salaries of their employees. That wouldn't make sense for them. Instead they borrow and quickly repay. When the banks suddenly started to stop lending money due to the uncertainty of our current administration and other factors, it took many companies by surprise. Many went under because they didn't have the capital set aside to compensate.

There are many adjectives you could use to describe those brother's business techniques, but dumb isn't one of them.

[Hollywood]

Painthappy,I agree but IMO that is not likely to happen at least not right away
whoever purchases the assets will need operating capital to run the company, produce new product and get it to market so open source is out.

It is a stretch to believe that if the patents were open for everyone to use that it would do anything more then add greater profit to the guys already and do nothing with manufacturing these items or current pricing,not to mention that the 2 other companies involved in the Patent Wars would just take over control of the patents anyway.

If the new company were to make the patents available to others at a fair and equitable rate and encourage production that in itself would be a good start. after all that is business !

What you are asking for would be like MCB giving away free advertising to the industry so that there would be more promotion of Products and services therefore increasing sales for everybody

[Horizon]

Originally Posted by Krunk_Kracker

Very good post.

The more competition among business, the better the prices and product for the consumer.

Yes, but on the other hand, the patent process was put in place so people/companies can put in the effort and resources needed to innovate and have a chance at recouping their investment. Truly large innovations would be hard to justify the investment in if the innovators knew that they would not be rewarded for their efforts because the innovations automatically became public property. This is not a comment meant to be about specific events, just a general concept, just like I believe your statement is a general comment.

[Painthappy]

How about making it so if you're a new company and your sales are less than XX, you pay nothing, over XXX, you pay this, and over XXXX you pay that.

That would probably open the door a bit.

[Harbinger[TG]]

Originally Posted by Hollywood

Painthappy,I agree but IMO that is not likely to happen at least not right away
whoever purchases the assets will need operating capital to run the company, produce new product and get it to market so open source is out.

It is a stretch to believe that if the patents were open for everyone to use that it would do anything more then add greater profit to the guys already and do nothing with manufacturing these items or current pricing,not to mention that the 2 other companies involved in the Patent Wars would just take over control of the patents anyway.

If the new company were to make the patents available to others at a fair and equitable rate and encourage production that in itself would be a good start. after all that is business !

What you are asking for would be like MCB giving away free advertising to the industry so that there would be more promotion of Products and services therefore increasing sales for everybody

This is all fine and dandy in lollipop land. However, Steve was the one that initiated all the claims in his statements. And it starts with him stating that WH bought the IP along with other things. This is later contradicted with his statement about it might not be finalized. This is all further compounded by his claiming that this is all for the benefit of the player. No one spends millions of dollars to lose money. Then he states this is all time consuming which is total crap. It takes jsut as long to type 500 words of signifcance as opposed to 500 words of nothing substantive or hype. This is purposefully done in a metered process specifically to creat more hype and web traffic. And I am positive that any website with half a brain will increase their add costs in respect to their traffic, that is how it is done.

All this crap about what people did in the past, is just that, in the past. That was a long long time ago, and as most people have posted and intimated over the years, they would like most of these industry people to stay there, in the past, without again wrecking the industry.

Now again, why did Steve make any of these comments if he was:
A. Uninvolved
B. The buy-out was not even finalized.
C. Actually thought that major industry players were altruistic and were going to opensource this stuff for nothing or next to nothing.

So why would someone post all this stuff up without full knowledge?
Why would someone post insignificant things only to drive traffic to their site?
Why would someone claim that they are uninvolved when the host and maintain the web site as the "official media outlet"?

This pattern of seed baiting for web stats is nothing new, and certainly not new in paintball. But to think that we are dumb enough to take this is either ignorant, naive, or fairly egotistical. None of these options speak well of those creating the hype through what is essentially spam.

As to making the price fair and equitable. Who is to say they are not already fair? It is no secret that many firms farmed their production to China and the ASEAN countries years ago to make more profit.

Now as to all of this increasing production. Have you seen the economy lately? Have you seen the state of the industry? This is a hobby fuled by discretionary spending, and guess what... a lot of people just don't have it.
Additionally, there has been a marked rise in pump play, woodsball, and other sides of paintball that are not patent intensive or paint intensive. So to assume that these people are going to leverage the IP, which is mostly the electro patent, in a decreasing cycle of the segment AND make it cheaper is also fairly naive. People are in business to make money.

I keep hearing all this talk about further innovation. What can we really do to innovate the technology? IMO, not much.


And who is to stop this cabal from making the licensing fee so high that no one could produce anything?

[TechPB-Mike]

I tell ya what, I couldn't imagine a worse industry to try to make a living in... than paintball. No thanks

I'm not exactly the biggest Smart Parts fan, but I tell ya what.. that last year of products was an amazing year for them. The SP-1 and Vibe Blackheart were some of the best guns I've ever seen in that price bracket. The LUXE was smoking, I love that gun.

I don't know, I have mixed emotions about Smart Parts, but the last couple products they released were amazing.

We'll see what happens, I tell ya paintball desperately needs help

[Mar]

Mike, like your profile pic/Avatar! That's a great looking white hat!


wait a minute.....


OH NOEZ!..................................