Bring Back/Save your Favorite Paintball Company???

[SignOfZeta]

Dang...why didn’t I say Sterling? The Phantom is doing great compared to the Sterling.

[Magmoormaster]

Honestly, I'm not sure who I'd bring back. The standard answers, WGP or AGD or AKA or TIppmann, I doubt any of them would be doing better than their direct competitors. Would WGP make something better than the Resurrection? Not likely. Would AGD or AKA make something better than what Eclipse is making? Probably not. Of the lot, I'd be most interested in seeing what Tippmann came up with. They were interesting because they always focused on the entry to low-mid level.

I'd be more likely to pump the money into my favorite local store, build the community up.

[OpusX]

Stop interrupting the nostalgia trip with logic and reason ;-P [but yeah you are right]

[Siress]

I have but one 'like' to give...but know I wanted to give more.

[fullofpaint]

SpecOps, Build off the popularity of the Hammer 7 and other magfed guns that came after they closed and put out some Nelson-based magfed pumps with a wide variety of body kits for different sniper rifle looks. Also use the popularity of mech paintball and woods tournaments for a new line of speedball styled camo gear.

[Marauder_Pilot]

SpecOps was a great company for the time, but man if they'd have been able to survive through to today with magfed and the modding community the way they are, they'd have been doing great.

[Trbo323]

Agd, with all the hype around mech these days I'd love to see something new come from their camp

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

[Marbo40k]

Hands down it would be WDP. Angels were legendary and it’s a shame they ended up where they did. I think with the resurgence of “Retro” in the last couple years, they could actually make a comeback if there was enough funding to get it back off the ground.

[Cunha]

32 degrees

i want to be as cool as ice 😎

Lollll

I’ll go with akalmp

[moving_target]

I play this game every time I play the lottery, I've got a couple small paintball businesses in mind that I want to give my money to help spin them up. Sci-Fi paintball is one of them. I won't share the others on the off chance I win the lottery some day

[Chuck E Ducky]

Atlas Paintball

[gabe]

For no other reason than nostalgia....

Spec Ops Paintball

[Arthur]

Oh, G.I. Sports for sure my fellow paintball friends.

[DocsMachine]

The sad fact is, most of the companies mentioned, failed for reasons beyond money. Not to say that cash flow wasn't an issue, but in a lot of cases some of those issues were with the products themselves. (Example given: the semidisastrous last few iterations of the Angel- combine that with the economic issues of the '09 recession, and there she goes.)

The best use for that $5 million would be to do some kind of PR thing, to help get people into or back into the sport.

Yeah, the huge growth in our sport just before the recession was in fact a "bubble"- it was gonna pop regardless of what the overall economy did. But in the decade-plus since, we're still not back up to anywhere near the participation levels we were even five years before the recession.

The sport in general faces a lot more competition than it used to; near-analogues like airsoft or Nerf, as well as video games, even things like streaming TV. I know a ton of people who would rather game and/or Netflix than... well, do just about anything, really.

I honestly have no idea if there's any way a heavy PR campaign could help the overall sport, but I DO know we don't need more markers, as much as we need more players.

Doc.

[JeeperCreeper]

Sadly the current climate will probably have plenty of effect on the dying future of our beloved sport. Most of the time people only know about paintball from something terrible on the news involving misuse of the equipment. It would be nice to change that.

[Foster]

100% and some of the clearest spoken “big picture” explication on this site. Those lucky enough to have watched the various paintball companies/trends/participation/innovation/rebirth/rebrand/style/culture/tradition come and go have to appreciate this post.

[Wraith]

Yeah, 5 mil I'd spend on setting up a field with a good pro-shop that actually does service. It's a huge pain to find any place that's got real airsmiths these days for stuff I can't fix myself, and frankly the only thing field wise left here is terrible, assuming it survives losing 18+ months to lockdown.

[scottieb]

For a company, I'd bring back Centerflag.

[Jonnydread]

I really enjoyed Centerflag stuff. I used their beehive regs and tanks exclusively back in the day.

[scottieb]

Centerflag stuff was good! And made by good people too.

[JonM]

When it comes to bringing back marker manufacturers, also consider the state of technology today. Autocockers were able to make a comeback these days simply because there really isn’t anything else like them and they still have that old school cool factor going for them. So, I’d consider them to be the exception. Technically, AGD is still in business, but good luck bringing them back as anything but a niche product. The same goes for any other company looking to bring back outdated designs. ICD released the PRP not all that long ago, and it pretty much fizzled. Do we really need another Nelson based marker today? The market pretty much said no to that. As much as the average MCB member likes the old stuff, most players couldn’t care less. If any of these old companies were to come back, they’d be up against more current competitors with more refined designs. Nostalgia can’t make enough money in a niche market to remain profitable, so their only hope of survival would be to come back with a superior product.

[bellicose]

I, for one, cannot wait until the nelson based Gargoyle 2 is out.

[punkncat]

Hands down it would be WDP. Angels were legendary and it’s a shame they ended up where they did. I think with the resurgence of “Retro” in the last couple years, they could actually make a comeback if there was enough funding to get it back off the ground.

This is why I said "ignoring market situation".....WDP would not be a viable business model based on market direction and the design of their platform. The "go to coolness" right this moment are fast mechanicals that may or may not be convertible to electro. Without some breakthrough type solenoid activation the location of the solenoid in Angels is prohibitive to simplicity in that department.