On Monetizing Paintball

[Trbo323]

There's many many problems with mainstream, professional paintball

Here are some of them!

1) it's not relatable to people who don't play it. Idk about you guys but I don't shoot close to a case of paint for one point and my team doesn't go through a whole pallet in a weekend. My markers also don't cost on average $1500

The fix as I see it is limited paint. There was some talk of limiting the whole team when they went onto the field and I think that's smart. Just count the number of pods at the starting box. If there's too many. Pull one player, the teams will get the message real fast. Adapt or die


2) in that same vein. When I go play, even if I am playing with my own team, we all don't have the same marker. Hell look at any rec field, if you exclude the rental players you are lucky if 3 people have the same marker on any side before a game starts.

The fix: I've said this before but I would love to see some mixing of the formats. 1 speedball marker, 2 mechanical, 2 pumps for a 5 man team. And more than that, change it between events. Next event. Everyone has to shoot a autococker. Adapt or die

I think this one can also really help the industry as a whole. There's a lot of good companies out there that never get any recognition because they don't make a $1500 tournament electro. If pumps were required, companies like Nova could get their markers on a professional field with an audience

3) each game I play has different tactics. This is the largest reason I will shut off a paintball game I've been watching. I can watch about 10 points and then it just starts looking like it's on repeat. It's just do they use the snake or the Doritos side to move up the field? That's all.

The fix. Get creative with the fields. First off the teams never get to know the format in advance. Maybe it's hyperball one weekend, structures the next maybe it's a mash up of different field styles after that. Adapt or die

There's more on my mind but that's all I have time for right now but in general, it really needs to come back to the roots. I think it can be way more popular and get more viewers if it's just more relatable to the experience players have going to any random field

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[boomersruckus]

Back in the early 2000's there was an event indoors that had a very large black curtain that dropped down between the 2 halves of the field. Teams on each side of that curtain were able to move bunkers to where they wanted them before the curtain was raised. I only ever heard about that happening one time and if I am not mistaken, it was in a Paintball2extreme magazine. That would be a hoot these days.


Still, making the game more interesting for the players doesnt mean it will be more entertaining to the masses. Mixed markers per team would be fun. Throw in a real long field and a first strike dude in the back. 1 electro, 1 mech, 2 pumps, and a first strike. lmao.

[martix_agent]

Back in the early 2000's there was an event indoors that had a very large black curtain that dropped down between the 2 halves of the field. Teams on each side of that curtain were able to move bunkers to where they wanted them before the curtain was raised. I only ever heard about that happening one time and if I am not mistaken, it was in a Paintball2extreme magazine. That would be a hoot these days.


Still, making the game more interesting for the players doesnt mean it will be more entertaining to the masses. Mixed markers per team would be fun. Throw in a real long field and a first strike dude in the back. 1 electro, 1 mech, 2 pumps, and a first strike. lmao.

That format would really suck to play in a tournament, but would be a blast in rec play!

Didn't the woodsball leage try something like your second idea? It looked like fun.

[Trbo323]

Back in the early 2000's there was an event indoors that had a very large black curtain that dropped down between the 2 halves of the field. Teams on each side of that curtain were able to move bunkers to where they wanted them before the curtain was raised. I only ever heard about that happening one time and if I am not mistaken, it was in a Paintball2extreme magazine. That would be a hoot these days.


Still, making the game more interesting for the players doesnt mean it will be more entertaining to the masses. Mixed markers per team would be fun. Throw in a real long field and a first strike dude in the back. 1 electro, 1 mech, 2 pumps, and a first strike. lmao.

Please tell me there's footage of that somewhere, I really want to see how it plays out.

This is kind of what I was talking about though. As an audience member if you heard channel A was a NXL event and channel B was this curtain format, at this point which are you watching?

Maybe the curtain format gets old after a few events fine, if the organizers have the testicular fortitude to try something else then it can still be interesting. Maybe next week some of the bunkers are put on turntables that slowly turn them. Get a bunch of junkyard cars, have a have around Halloween? All the bunkers are inflatable Halloween decorations.

Does anyone remember the show American gladiator? If you don't go look it up, really interesting show back in the 90s but I think one of the main reasons why it was so fun to watch is they had a variety of games/contests but you the watcher never knew which ones they were going to use each week and even though they did repeat, they only had so many, it was still really interesting to watch because it wasn't the same thing week after week

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[boomersruckus]

Those tennis ball cannons were the best. Watching the Gladiators use their far more stable and controllable turret mounted launcher against the contestants hand held launchers was a blast.

[The Hobbit]

I love the idea of varying game styles for a rec “beer” league. Put a team together and once a week at the local field you go and play your 30 minute game. Each week would be a different objective or utilizing a different field. Do that for 5-6 weeks then do a mini tournament with seeding based off of “regular” season performance. I’m all in for that.

I like the idea of limited paint per point, each team gets 20 pods to divvy up as they see fit. Small changes like that I feel would be better than being American gladiator with paintball guns.

Honestly a regional youth league, ran similarly to other youth sports, may be a driver of building interest. That way a child competing gets to play 10-12 tournaments a year against other kids his age level, with a smaller travel radius. I don’t think money would be an issue, parents dump thousands into hockey and other travel sports for their kids. There just needs to be an argument as to why paintball is a valid alternative/option to these other established sports.

[Axel]

Televised paintball was tried and it failed. There's no special set of rules you can come up with that will appeal to tournament players, manufacturers, and viewers.