Paintball Epiphanies

[cockerpunk]

I agree, such a joke, and the true definition of insanity.

That's another epiphany I had at some point: the people running paintball at the top level are largely incompetent. Those who are competent probably move into a different industry that can pay them properly. I'm a marketing manager and I'm pretty sure nobody in PB could afford me. The fact Kore hired John Dresser as their marketing manager proved that to me. No offense to John, nice guy, but you don't hire someone with near zero actual marketing qualification or experience to run the biggest marketing role in the sport unless you either can't afford real talent or you just don't care. I think it's probably all of the above.

For paintball to work on TV (if it's even possible) the whole thing needs to be redesigned from first principles. No chance of that unless the incumbents are liquidated. If the powers that be were actually interested in growing the sport, leagues would be streamed for free on twitch and YT. The fact they've monetized the streams proves they've given up on the long term and are just extracting what they can short term.

people used to ask me why i never got into paintball as an engineer, and i was offered a position at a still large paintball company when i finished college ...

this is why. paintball as a business is nonsensical. there is no correlation between being a good engineer and making good products and success.

i do not regret the career choice to not become involved in paintball. when 22 year old me decides this is nonsense ... its really nonsense.

[vijil]

It's a real shame.

If paintball had been in good hands it could have done well. Maybe even as well as frisbee golf or pro unicycling. Alas, such glorious heights were not to be.

[cockerpunk]

eh, paintball isnt the only thing that is run by idiots. *waves hands around generally at the world*

it turns out trying to eek every dollar from every human transaction/interaction was a bad idea to base building the entire world and all its rules and interactions on. we built the world wrong, not just paintball lol.

[vijil]

Whether or not that's true, there's no need to get political to explain paintball. Plenty of sports handle their business vastly better, because for whatever reason they aren't run by cynics. Unicycling and disc golf are two examples.

It turns out nickel and diming your players for short term gains is just bad business in the mid to long.

[Daniel Tiger]

Paintball shouldn’t be taken more serious than a snowball fight or a game of tag…. I can’t be the a** yelling at people because things didn’t go my way

[glaman5266]

-It took me a long time to realize that Phantoms just aren't my thing. They have their place, but for me they suck. Pump stroke, how they point, pretty much everything. Only thing I like about them is how modular they are.

-This year I'm realizing that it's an awesome feeling not bringing so much to the field. I began pushing through that anxiety of not bringing all that stuff to the field and to not have to deal with it at the end of the day is an amazing feeling.

-I'm liking more of the simple things. Tippmanns, for example. I've owned plenty of cockers, spoolers, poppets and pumps, but a simple in-line blowback with some DIY mods is just a straight-up good time. Funny how we sometimes go back to where we started.

[glaman5266]

Myrkul It’s there… lol

https://www.mcarterbrown.com/forum/paintball-news-aa/the-armory/tippmann/583136-pro-carbine-trigger-job

[glaman5266]

iamthelazerviking It’s pretty much factory, but with a few DIY mods. It’s got my previously-mentioned trigger job, electric tape on the side of the breech under the foregrip (takes out wobble), internal polishing and Dye sticky grips. Shoots very well even with the stock barrel.

[Myrkul]

I don't know how I missed that.

THANK YOU!!!

[SETHZILLA!]

I hate centerfeeds on any paintgun, so much that I'm actively selling off any of them that I have to stay all right feed or left feed.

I always hated cheaters, but now play on a team and I realized if we don't place well in a tournament, it's because the other team cheats and not that they're actually better. (Most of the time)

Sent from my SM-S921U using Tapatalk

[vijil]

Hah, I'm the opposite with centerfeeds - can't stand any offset. I always sight speedball style with one eye either side of the barrel tho. I never considered paintball accurate enough to sight down the barrel, gun style.

Re. cheaters I suspect you're right. Reffing standards are never that great at smaller events anyway, and PB is a game where a little cheating can give a massive and game breaking advantage. And then people go around saying "speedsoft is easy to ref" - it's like yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that...

[The Jayster]

-I'm fairly adept at teching guns but I'll never master the art of properly timing a Cocker;
-With the average paint quality these days my $200 stock A-5 shoots as well as my $1,600 LV2;
-While we live in the Golden Age of affordable, reliable and well-performing equipment, I'd still trade it all to go back to 35 years ago when we were playing on those huge wood fields and everyone had a pump and 100 paintballs.

[Cdn_Cuda]

I miss a good woodball field. My local field has a decent woods section but rarely uses it.

[DocsMachine]

[...]I'd still trade it all to go back to 35 years ago when we were playing on those huge wood fields and everyone had a pump and 100 paintballs.

-Aw come on, it hasn't been that long ag...

...holy sh*t.



But yeah, I'd kill to be able to go back to some of those old outlaw woods games. In no small part because of the players- friends and buddies, we were all young and had no responsibilities. We could- and did- get together for a game at the drop of a hat, especially if somebody had gotten permission to build some forts out behind his parents' house...

sigh

But hey, you want an epiphany? Been putting together my paperwork for end of the year, next year's taxes, etc. Going by what I'll probably round out the year for income, and comparing that with an optimistic estimate of how much time I spent in the shop... I averaged just under $4 an hour.

And that's up slightly from last year.

Now, I get a chunk from my Patreons (hint-hint ) and my bills are low (no mortgage, no car payment, no streaming services or other expenses) and, as in every year, I spent a lot of time out there fixing and repairing things, making tooling, etc. Stuff that needs to be done, but doesn't exactly pay the bills.

But still...

You guys are lucky I like this job.

Doc.

[The Jayster]

Yep - my first game was in 1990 when I was 15. I was visiting friends in Ontario with my mom and they had their own paintball guns. They were Brass Eagle pump guns. So we were 4, we each had a BE pump marker, ski googles (yes, I know...), maybe 100 or so paintballs each and we played in a stretch of forest in a municipal park (something that will get you promptly arrested today but back then no one cared). I was hooked.

When I was of legal age in 1992 I started playing as a renter at a proper paintball field; they rented out Tippmann SL-68 IIs. The forest fields were huge; refs had to use walkie-talkies when starting games and no one started running - there was no point. It was fun to be able to stealthily outflank the opposite team and steal their flag, wiping out the odd opposite straggler in the process.

Then some guys started showing up with Autocockers. Unable/unwilling to go for that, I settled for a Tippmann Pro-Am (my first ever gun). But I wanted more, and 30+ years later the rest is history. Funny though, earlier today I spent some time servicing one of my Phantoms. Talk about going full-circle and/or going back in time.

[Meleager7]

Mask Mounted Action Cams......I think the novelty has worn off, and the tradeoffs really bugged me last big game.

- greatly missing my mask fan , had a bad fogging issue last game
- wish I had my visor back on the goggles
- it makes the mask top heavy, and bounces around
- my videos all look the same! ...and are thus kinda boring

I'll move my cam onto the marker next game, and see how it goes, but I think am pretty sure I won't be running it on the mask again.

[vijil]

Epiphany:

Paintball is not, and never was, an "extreme sport".

Extreme sports are physically dangerous and/or deadly, PB just kinda hurts a bit. Extreme sports are *all* individual sports, PB is a team game. Extreme sports are "extreme" because you watch them and say "that's extreme!" - paintball just isn't. Extreme sports are incredibly easy to watch, with no understanding or context or fancy production required for spectators to appreciate them. PB is none of that.

Paintball, whether speed or woods, is much closer to a sport like soccer or hockey. Aspects of it in the woods game are more analogous to something like cricket - long, tactically deep, lots of waiting around, occasional spots of action and skill.

We got the marketing completely wrong when we tried to sell it as extreme, especially when we were trying to get it on TV.