General

[Mr. Furious]

Are we seriously talking about having nice bathrooms at paintball fields? So you want to walk into a nice tile-floored, sweet smelling bathroom at a paintball field with your muddy paints and paint-dripping cleats for 30 seconds to answer the call of nature? Do we need a guy with mints, gum, cologne and combs in blue water to appeal to adults? Paintball is an outdoor action sport and a regularly pumped porta-potty and a sink with running water in the staging area is all you really need to meet the needs of those needing to void. When golfers start sliding into the greens to make that last shot or diving over a log to get an out of bounds ball then I'd say we could draw some parrallels between the facilities needed to cater to the players' needs but until then the fact that paintball players also play golf is more of a testament to the status and popularity of golf than a reason to believe the demographics of the customers are the same. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who has not played golf. The same cannot be said for almost any other leisure activity.

Comparing golf and paintball based solely on cost is silly IMHO. I've had a lot of hobbies over the years and all the good ones required a constant influx of money to keep me interested and or allow me to compete. Heck, when I raced RC cars I would spend more each week on entry fees, tires and replacement parts then I do at paintball each week. Paintball has levled off and may decline a bit over the next couple years but so has just about everything else in our economy. It's an economic issure more than anything else and I'd bet if you were a golf enthusiast you'd be on the forum for that discussing how the local course is raising prices because they just don't have the influx of new players they used to or how the regulars are going every other week instead of every week like they used to. Disposable incomes are getting smaller so people will be doing costly leisure activities less. It's not just paintball it's everything. Hell, if people won't even buy a new place to live, why would they spend money on a few hours of fun?

[LK-13]

Originally Posted by WilD

I think this is part of the problem. The industry is far too focused on kids. Kids make terrible customers because they have limited resources and change focus quickly. I think it is worth investigating investing more to serve the older players. If going to a paintball field was like going to a golf course, I think more of us would go more often. Basically, I'm saying if paintball fields were cleaner, classier and felt less like a daycare I would go more often. I'd like more focus on the older segment in the industry, those of us that stick around for 10, 20 or more years get tired of all the childish products pretty fast. Basically what the industry has created for itself is a quickly ending cycle that depends on 15 year olds taking it up, playing for two years and then disapearing. I don't think that model can survive.

thing is, 13 to 25 year olds have a greater amount of disposable income.
this is why products marketed to that age bracket make millionaires out of
those that are selling very quickly.
once you have rent, utility bills, car payments, groceries and children to pay for you can not spend as freely as "Funky Fresh Wannabe Boy" that works flipping burgers 3 days a week while going to high school.

we maybe human, but we are still animals.
animals only have 3 needs:
1) food
2) shelter
3) procreation

after these are taken care of, everything else is gravy.
you don't need most of the things you spend your money on;
you WANT these things.

and many times in life Emotional WANT wins out over Rational NEED.

[Duzzy]

Now we fight internally.. From disgracing the new player to never having a good time, to the recballer who gives a damn about nothing but playing and if a field is not around or he thinks that his local field only caters to other so called “important non-paying types”, he becomes renegade … lawless. To the dealer, who cannot figure out why no one comes in their store. To the dealer that decides to devalue industry product because they are now in survival mode to make ends meet. To the manufacturer who now must do the same to help with dealer margins, but bleeds its own margins and soon must be hasty in their decision making… We must stop and start reflecting!

So where were they when all of this was going on before? I find it rather amusing that they only decry the current state of affairs when it affects their business.

Of course, if I'm misunderstanding something please feel free to correct me.

[ZanderC]

Steps down from what?

Ridiculous.

Karma's a bitch, huh? Hybrid was "AGG" to enough people, now the economy's being "AGG" to Hybrid.

[iq666]

I for one will miss Hybrid. Most of the 15 year olds that run around with Halo plates and 45 grips that say "contract killer", " F yer mom", "We Kill Everything" etc, usually epitomize everything I hate about the "Agg" crowd. Hybrid was nice enought to put a label on them for the rest of us to instantly recognize. Now, how will we know?

[Painthappy]

Originally Posted by iq666

I for one will miss Hybrid. Most of the 15 year olds that run around with Halo plates and 45 grips that say "contract killer", " F yer mom", "We Kill Everything" etc, usually epitomize everything I hate about the "Agg" crowd. Hybrid was nice enought to put a label on them for the rest of us to instantly recognize. Now, how will we know?

Heh... That's an interesting spin on it. I like your thinking....

[Mr. Furious]

Originally Posted by iq666

I for one will miss Hybrid. Most of the 15 year olds that run around with Halo plates and 45 grips that say "contract killer", " F yer mom", "We Kill Everything" etc, usually epitomize everything I hate about the "Agg" crowd. Hybrid was nice enought to put a label on them for the rest of us to instantly recognize. Now, how will we know?

An enlightened person judges another by their actions, not by the clothes they wear the things they own.

I'm not trying to be nasty or pick a fight but just because someone has a sense of style different than yours or uses a marker different than what you think is appropriate does not mean that they are a bad person, a bad player or bad for the sport of paintball. I've met a helluva lot of nice kids that were respectful and courteous both on the field and off even though they looked like rejects from an '80's hair band with their tossled mops and dangling headbands and carried equipment with the hate and "F the Ref" stickers all over them.

[iq666]

Originally Posted by Mr. Furious

An enlightened person judges another by their actions, not by the clothes they wear the things they own.

I'm not trying to be nasty or pick a fight but just because someone has a sense of style different than yours or uses a marker different than what you think is appropriate does not mean that they are a bad person, a bad player or bad for the sport of paintball. I've met a helluva lot of nice kids that were respectful and courteous both on the field and off even though they looked like rejects from an '80's hair band with their tossled mops and dangling headbands and carried equipment with the hate and "F the Ref" stickers all over them.

I did say MOST, not ALL. I was also being sarcastic, though I didn't use an "emoticon" to emphasize it.
I pride myself on being tolerant of all players, and I always go out of my way to be just as kind and courteous to others on the field as I would have them be with me. MOST of the time, I don't have a problem, from the stock class players to the speed-ballin' tourney guys. That being said, when I DO run into a problem, it is usually with the super-"agg" crowd as I described above.
Hybrid is the company I most closely relate with that attitude, and that is because I feel the slogans they adorn their gear with epitomize every negative perception of this sport. Unfortunately for the upstanding players who use the Hybrid gear, their contemptible counterparts who display the attitude portrayed in the company's slogans will inevitably color my judgement. Perhaps that is not an attitude of Zen-like "enlightenment", though it is how I feel.
Will someone's choice of gear prevent me from playing with them, or cause me to treat them poorly? Absolutely not. It WILL cause me to call into question their personal taste, but as the old saying goes, there is no accounting for that.

[Schmitti]

Kind of like the effects of gangsta rap on young adult high school males.... not all try to be thugs.. you get the occaisionally honors student that listens, but a chunk of them listen to the music and try to "live" the lifestyle.... and then you have the few that really try to live the lifestyle and they walk the walk and talk the talk.

I can totally see that with the agg mentality and manufaturers that sell products to cator to the "image".. you're going to get some that just wear the brand to be cool.. but you will get some that take it a step further.. and then you will get those few that walk the walk and talk the talk... they latter are the problem more so than the former... but the manufacturers make more money off the former due to numbers... and the former feed off the tough guy who gives a sh!t attitude of the later.. and buy more crap that makes them look tough...

It's one big circle jerk carried out buy morons and snake oil salesmen.

E