I started at 12
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I like 12 with a parent but some kids can’t handle that age either.
Both my boys started playing at 12. My rule was they got to shoot me in the yard first, followed by me shooting them. We played a few times that year and both actually played OK DDay when they were 13 (2013 & 2018). We didn’t plan it that way, just a coincidence. 2018 was a joke, compared to ‘07, ‘08 and ‘13 even.
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If they can take a shot and follow basic safety precautions. Let’er Rip Tater Chip.
My boys started at 7 and 8 🤫
We played a ton of Nurf and Jelly blasters. Took my oldest first, told my youngest “I didn’t think he wasn’t ready”. He insisted on playing at that point (challenge excepted). When they first started it was in very controlled environments. They both play regularly now and have played a ton of big games. They now have season pass to my favorite field. I do take them to places and events I know they will get good games at. I put a lot of effort in to get them setups that worked for little people that they can get behind and aim properly. With proper protection from spicy shots.
Proud to say they prefer to shoot there pumps, and are starting to get good at the game. It’s been super fun teaching them how to play. Playing in the North East we have a great group of ballers that has made introducing them to the game super easy.
That being said my kids can follow simple direction and basic safety precautions. They also have a decent pain tolerance they grew up playing Lacrosse so they are kind of savages.
I think maturity level is more important than age.
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It's not their age.
Their head had to be big enough to wear a mask where it won't fall off.
They must have enough body mass to take a hit without it resulting in injury.
They must also be mature enough to understand and follow the safety rules involving masks and trigger discipline.
With that being said, I've seen adults fail at all three.Comment
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I ran a private game earlier this year and had a variety of players, including my 13 nephew, some brand new adults, a friend’s 16 year old and his buddy. Ensuring it was a safe and friendly environment is a big deal. I controlled the games, made sure it was played to my specification so no one did anything stupid like
point blank shooting, overshooting etc. Everyone looked out for the younger players and made sure they had a good time. It really makes a difference.
My daughter is 12 and is very interested in playing but wasn’t ready yet. She’s a bit of a beanpole, so nit a lot to absorb a hit, but proper equipment will help with that. She wants to more comfortable shooting a marker and be able to hit something, which is a sound idea. As for pain, she’s been dealing with a 72 lbs Germans Shepherd puppy that views her as a sibling. Scratches, puppy bites, tackling, etc. I think she’ll be fine, but needs to be at her pace and we’ll do another private rental when she’s ready to try.Comment
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This is easily a third of the regular recball players at my local field. Most, if not all, of them are great players and mostly a good representative for the sport (with some coaching and subtle influencing here and there by the older players...)Last edited by StaticShocked; 09-01-2026, 10:23 AM.
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This is a bad take imo, or at least misinformed.
They need to work on converting kids/kiddie birthdays into returning customers, but focusing on kids/kiddie parties is a big factor of what gets kids into the game, and what keeps the lights on. Little Timmy comes to his friend's birthday party at Paintball Park and is exposed to something he didn't even know existed before that day and Paintball Park gets a crapton of money to host it. -
I've witnessed a former field who spent years chasing away regular adult customers by booking more and more birthday parties and limiting regular walk on players basically run their business into the ground trying to get the regulars back.
There is even under the best of conditions virtually no retention of players from that group. I've seen it first hand and ran the numbers...... The field I worked at had about a 1:100 birthday party kid to player conversion. We gave coupons out to party. Goers and rarely saw them come back to the proshop.
Paintball is treated like bumper bowling and plaster crafts.......
I did that a lot as a kid for parties but never picked it up past that and wouldn't you know it..... Plaster crafts places and bowling alleys shut down -
Profits.
We charged $10 per hundred rounds to birthday parties ($200 a case, that's nzd so about $150 at current rates if I also factor inflation since), but regular players expected $60 a case.
Regular players were worse than nothing, they were a net cost to the business. By bringing their own guns and insisting on using them they also made sure the birthday party punters wouldn't come back the next year. We got rid of them entirely, banned own guns outright, and had zero regrets. It was absolutely the correct business decision.
Speaking as a player, I hate that that's the way it was - but that was just the reality. Eventually (after I left) they got a monthly club day going because there was literally nowhere else to play in the city, but even that meant taking a hit to the bottom line.
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My son started when he was 10, but he asked for it because one of his friends was talking big about it. I had not ever told him I played tournaments before he was born. We played regular for about 10 years. He became better than me in some ways, so we made a good team.
The girls tried it when they were older than that but it didn't bite.Comment
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I started at 12 or 13 with outlaw woods ball. Ended up at the field almost every weekend through high school.Last edited by StaticShocked; 09-02-2026, 08:04 AM.Comment
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Pump should be an Olympic sport.
Approximately 1 million people worldwide participate in breakdancing.
How is breakdancing in the Olympics?
Instead of paintball, approximately 10-12 million people play paintball worldwide.Comment
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I don't get magfed. And I say that as a former airsofter. I do get limited paint, and I actually think limited paint formats are the key to this sport starting to actually thrive outside of the core audience. (Tournament ball as it currently exists is unsustainable, and the proof is that the "professional" scene is still the same few dozen people it was twenty years ago. It's never gonna take off and grow, and insisting it is has just become delusions of grandeur.) Magfed is just the most expensive, least practical, most fashion-before-function way possible to get there. A YouTuber named Darwin, who more than likely is a member here (I'm new, sue me), used to have a setup in a lot of videos about his markers where he'd run a stick feed paired with a 13ci that wore a neoprene cover which held stock class tubes. That's exactly the same as magfed from a practical standpoint, is cheap and readily available without specialized products that go out of stock, and doesn't rely on fashion for its appeal. That's the future, not magfed. Allow that at all magfed events, and you've got something. It'll be something for the fashionistas to get into when they've outgrown cosplaying soldiers. -
So the difference is, there are a lot of people that think having an AR style marker makes them better or feel more like they are in the military. That is a draw versus playing pump. I didn't think I would like magfed, but I find the longer marker with the AR style grip really helps me make some crazy shots without dumping tons of paint. I couldn't hit the side of a barn with most pumps.
I like knowing I can't dump paint each game and it makes me think about shots I'm taking (or not). I have shaved down the unnecessary accessories on the marker and it's light and allows me to move and get shots I don't always hit with a traditional marker. Are there larpers and cosplay guys out there? 100%. But our community is more about paintballers that like pushing themselves to be at a disadvantage and still winning somehow. Plus the EMF platform is fantastic. I love my Emek and the EMF is also just as enjoyable to use, maybe more in a lot of ways. -
Everything you've just described can be accomplished by using stock class tubes to feed something like my Pro Carbine. Heck, I'm currently kitting out a Pro-Lite I came into possession of recently, I might set it up for exactly that with a stock class belt I have lying around. Everything else you've described is just fashion to look a certain way while accomplishing the same thing. Want a chest rig to look more military? Fine. Get an RRV and throw a stock class panel on it, build from there. But having a marker that looks like an AR is entirely a fashion thing, and I won't pretend otherwise. I have no issue with things being for fashion, for crying out loud look at the rest of us, everyone does it in their own way. But please be intellectually honest about it. I will take magfed seriously as a class when those of us who aren't fashionistas are allowed to run stock class tubes and stick feeds in place of mags. Because it is exactly the same limitation, just far more accessible, and not putting fashion foremost in concern. Function over form is what sets paintball apart from something like airsoft, and what has thus far protected it from the weirder subgroups of the gun community. As someone who escaped the weird side of the gun community, I am intentional about protecting my new home.
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TLDR: Kids below 10 should be limited to low-impact games, but exceptions could be made according to specific circumstances
Talking with some of the older relatives of my son's (he's 9) friends, it is airsoft that captures their fascination, not paintball. Also, with the advances made in laser tag technology, it remains a mainstay for kids' parties, especially with parents who might otherwise frown at airsoft or paintball. Foam flinging (Nerf) is also a growing thing, also seen as less 'threatening' by the more, shall we say, overly protective and/or hoplophobe parents.
At the fields I play at, I see lots of grade school kids playing 50cal low-impact or adults playing regular paintball, yet few teens or pre-teens. Methinks they'd rather play airsoft. Broadly speaking I think that any kid below 10 at the very least should be limited to low-impact, but exceptions might be made according to specific circumstances (low intensity private game? Kids that are tough and/or mature for their age?, etc.)
My daughter who is 12 has zero interest in any of the above mentioned 'action pursuit' games (unless a K-Pop group like the Stray Kids would start playing airsoft or paintball...). My son on the other hand, does. I started him with Nerf inside the house, then high-end home laser tag in our backyard. I unexpectedly introduced him last week to CQB indoors airsoft as I went to a field to buy batteries for a pair of AEGs that I hadn't used since the pre-Covid days and one of the staff asked us if we wanted to join in for a game or two and so we did.. He was apprehensive at first (even though he's usually on the tough side) but he ended up loving it. I always thought that his first introduction to anything past Nerf or laser tag would be low impact paintball, or maybe even regular paintball, but that's what happened.
The following day I played paintball and towards the end of the day I was shot on the side of the head by what was obviously either a hot gun or a paintball from a bad batch. The latter happened to me a few weeks ago when I shot a friend on the forehead who ended up with a nasty welt and felt dizzy. I later shot at a metal post at short range and the ball bounced off... Had to immediately throw away that bad paint. And for the record I'm super anal when it comes to chronoing my guns (I often chrono throughout the day, not just in the morning), I was set at 285fps. I'm no wimp; I'm 5'11" and weigh 220 lbs, and did a fair amount of old school martial arts sparring and bouts. I hike all year long and I've taken some nasty falls; I'd brushed them off and hike on. So when I say that such paintball hits are getting to me, that should be a sign. By the way my friend who got hurt is a bodybuilder who has boxing experience and once played speedball; he ain't a wimp either. So you see why there is no way I'd let my son play under those conditions?
Many players don't bother to chrono their guns, often out of sheer ignorance and sometimes out of laziness. I'm a huge proponent of in-game or in-between games spot checks by refs but sadly it is not a common practice.
One last point to consider is cost: I have enough good gear to equip a few players and thus invited a friend of mine and his son who have never played. Then I ran the math and that tallied up to a few hundred bucks. My friend said 'no way'. By comparison, were I to introduce them to airsoft the cost would be a fraction of that. More to the point, most airsoft places rent mid-tier guns, greatly reducing the tech disparity with equipment owners. For less than $30 for the both of them, they'd have more than enough BBs to shoot to their heart's content."Aren't you getting too old for this??"
"Nope."Comment
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My son has been begging to go out for a year i waited till he was almost 10. We went out for our first time and i had my doubts. I made him let me take a couple chest shots ( with padding ) in the back yard. then the day of I specifically told him we’re here just to learn the rules and basic safety topics. I kept pounding in his head you can not take ur mask off. We went to a private mech vs mech event with a bunch of great guys and he had an absolute blast couldn’t get enough. everyone was pumping him up. He got hit in the neck the finger and the inner thigh and still wanted more. he’s usually pretty timid and a bit of a cry baby but i think the fact he was around a few other 11 12 year olds that had experience and a bunch of adults he sucked it up.
I am so proud of him and excited for future events !Comment
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12 and 14 when my boys started playing, the 12 year old still plays at 32 years oldmy feedbackComment
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Ive been grooming my nephew for paintball since they were born. Currently 11 years old. Started with nerf. Only just recently bumped up to high power nerf. They still complain about getting shot. So for this particular nephew, hes not ready yet. But i still let him shoot paintball guns at stuff in the backyard. He likes them, but itll be a few more years. Probably when he becomes a teenager and wants to act cool with his friendsComment
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First time I played, I was 8. I loved it from the get go, but I was a little crazy kid. I never minded getting hit, probably why I'm a hockey goalie too.
It's definitely a kid to kid case, some won't like it and some will love it. I had great times playing with my dad and brother back then.Comment
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