Paintball Epiphanies

[blitz121]

I have friends in paintball that I have known and been friends with longer than I have known my wife. She finds it weird that some of the guys I play with I have known since I was 13-14 years old and they were in their mid 20s when I started.

[Refoogee]

That sort of thing is so real. It hits like a brick when you lose people like that. Paintball really hasn't been the same since one of my best friends, who I'd played with since I was 12 years old, died. But I still predominantly play with a guy who I've played with since my mid teens.

[coyote]

CO2 now occupies the same space HPA did when I started playing in the 90s.

Back in the day commercial fields sold CO2 fills as propellant. The rare customer that used HPA needed to bring his own scubas and fill gear.

I can't remember the last time a field I played at offered CO2 as an option.

[latches109]

I miss CO2, I swear the gas density helps with accuracy.

[vijil]

Airsoft isn't doing much better than paintball.

They caught up and passed quickly, but now we're just all going down together.

[Myrkul]

It's crazy how fast that slope goes down after ICD left the game.

That is the real reason for the decline and I won't be convinced otherwise. 😛

[Magmoormaster]

Airsoft isn't doing much better than paintball.

They caught up and passed quickly, but now we're just all going down together.

What exactly is that graph measuring? How do you quantify "interest"?

I ask because looking at retail sales and participation numbers paint a very different picture.

Edit to say this is coming across as really confrontational and defensive, which is not the intent. I'm just curious, cuz like I said the numbers I've seen look very different.

[Siress]

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=airsoft,paintball&hl=en

Google trend. You can hover over the "?" to answer your questions.