2009
By "case" I do mean, "case of paint".
The economy hit the Paintball world pretty significantly, one might say the industry were bunkered by it.
Yet, adjustments are being made. As the cost of paint becomes prohibitive, the pump-gun surges back into popularity.
Paintball is a sport of "gadgets". It moved away from pure skill as the game progressed out of the woods and onto smaller and smaller "arena's".
RoF grew disproportionately to accuracy - it didn't matter - when Angels could spew out 12-13bps versus the much more accurate and slower, mechanical AutoCocker the game was still on.
That is to say, the accuracy of the 'Cocker vs the volume of the Angel could keep you in the game - indeed, many teams dominated with 'Cockers in the "old days".
Reliability played much more as a factor as well. A Cocker could be cleaned "in the field" quickly - once an Angel "blew paint" your accuracy radius went from 3 feet to 8 feet diameter.
Bob Long changed everything. The Intimidator was electric, fast, accurate, reliable and back when gas was around 2 bucks a gallon, the Intimidator was affordable.
The die was cast and the race for more and more RoF accelerated.
I won't bother going into the history lesson, if you're interested, read this. Please note, it was written in 2004.
So, where are we today, 2009?
Two cases of reasonable paint can cost you $55.00. Park entry is around $25.00 for the day. Gas is up around $2.50 and California's unenjoyment rate is around 11%.
When running a tricked out, tourney level marker(Ego, DM or Viking), I can go through 6-7 pods a game - two cases is enough for half a day's practice. And for the record, I enjoy the pure managed chaos of tourny ball - even when 18BPS are coming at me. This level of play is the "tip of the spear" of the sport; intense 7 minutes and at the break, an explosive 5 seconds.
So I am not anti-ROF or anti-electro. I just want to see something different in the sport and with the growth in pump expanding(due to cost of paint and that a very good pump gun can be had for around 200 bucks)
I think getting back to "mechanicals" would be great for attracting new 'ballers.
Benefits of mech's:
- Less paint
- Accuracy
- Reliability
- Skill based vs. Rate of Fire
Maybe we should bring back the 'Sock-hats' eh?
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