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.

[Socalpumpballer]

Fields moved from co2 once compressed air became cheap enough to have on their rental fleets. Also tournament play forced the concept of “all day air” unlimited fills. I miss co2, mech and pump guns just shoot better with it

[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.

[latches109]

just looking at the last two years shows airsoft is more popular (USA) - airsoft is blue line, paintball red line


and looking at keywords like air soft gun and paintball marker,

[The Hobbit]

I have seen where airsoft is, seemingly, popular in the tactical shooting segment. A relatively low cost force on force training aid. Dunno how much of an impact that may have on this comparison overall.

[Frmrspec]

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.

it quantifies "interest" by tracking search queries .... I got into a debate on reddit a little while ago, someone was trying to use those numbers to equate participation levels and I vehemently disagreed. My belief is ANY topic shows a similar decline as it reaches community "saturation", unless an event or something happens to bring it to a new market/community. I then pulled up graphs comparing just about every sport I could think of and almost all showed a similar decline….

[Frmrspec]

I’m conflicted.. I’ve got a wall of markers that I know I’ll never use.. but they are so low value that taking the time to sell them isn’t worth it. Plus if I ever decided I wanted another, I would never be able to find one again… that mixed with a toddler and a newborn on the way, I don’t see me having the time or convenience to play

and I genuinely love tinkering… even more than playing :/

[DocsMachine]

it quantifies "interest" by tracking search queries ....

-It's worth noting that I'm practically Captain Paintball over here, and I'm not sure I've used the term "paintball", let alone "paintball marker" in a search term, in over five years.

You can argue that that graph represents new players, searching for the first time, but I'd say even that is iffy and imprecise. How many people are pointed to a source (like MCB) off of some other discussion board of FB thread? "I was thinking of getting into paintball." "Oh, then you need to check out this place! [link to MCB, PBN, some FB group, Reddit, etc.]"

For that matter, what search engines does that graph tally? Just Google? DDG? Brave? Bing? Searches on and in FB? Searches on Reddit?

Not, by any stretch of the imagination, saying the graph is 'wrong' or anything like that, just suggesting that you should take the data with a BIG grain of salt.

Doc.

[latches109]

It’s just google. I use the term paintball all the time. This represents the use with other terms. A good example is try searching “ccm” then “ccm paintball” the use of the term paintball shows up in that graph.

[Miles]

A Tippmann A5, with the gas line to the cycle feed removed, is a pump marker.

[William the Third]

[vijil]

The vagaries of google mean those graphs aren't all that useful for objective interest or player numbers or whatever.

What they ARE useful for is comparing different things - in this case PB vs AS.

Or...