Paintball Philosophy

[thepaintfoundation]

We all know paintball is great, right?
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees....
The problem is, paintball isn't taken seriously. People see it as a hobby, not a sport. There are people who actively rally against it due to the fact that, when it boils down to it, paintball is basically shooting people with guns. There is little interest from people to get into it, and there are many reports of the sport being in decline.
So, I ask;
What's the problem with Paintball?

 

[Andy Steele]

Perception

 

[TheDestinyPB]

The problem with paintball, as explained in my thread, is the lack of knowledge and understanding from the public about what paintball really is.

 

[thepaintfoundation]

Perception

What do you mean by this?

 

[Cook$]

lol........

 

[Liam92]

think the thing is that anybody that tries out a sport by coincidence or whatever, most of the time they get a good perception of what that sport is like right up to the pro level. obviously if you go to a football match, skiing resort, horse riding, gymnastics class etc etc. you get a good idea of what you could get in to. whereas for probably 90% of people who go and try out paintball, they do it in the woods at a rental site with a bunch of strangers and are mostly concerned with hunting down their own friends or whatever else amuses them about the idea of going paintballing. they very rarely get a sense of the teamwork and tactics that can be involved in woodsball alone, and they certainly don't have a clue about tournament paintball and the structure, formats or events that go on. The big shame is, in the uk especially, i can't think of anybody off the top of my head that offers full tournament, and full woodsball formats from the same place. This ultimately means that the only way punters will find out about the bigger world of paintball when they go to a rental site, is if the staff tell them about it. Now i used to tell punters who were interested in playing again to check out these forums and the websites of some manufacturers, but ultimately its not as if site owners will go out of their way to instruct staff to inform people about the kind of paintball they CANT offer. Who wants to lose potential repeat business?

EDIT: yes i can think of one scottish site who have just started a tournament series on top of their woodsball activities xD

 

[rich_price92]

I think that everybody recognises the issue is mainly about peoples perceptions of what paintball is.

Before they scratch beneath the surface it is just seen as an incredibly expensive way to spend a stag do or a more painful version of laser tag.

At Portsmouth Uni we realised that we have the perfect opportunity to start changing peoples view on paintball and decided to go for it. We set up a snap cage and had 10 people on hand to talk to people at Refreshers fair and explain that actually paintball is completely different to what first comes to mind. Delta force tried setting up a stall just up the road and I'm fairly sure that we over shadowed them

For more info on that and what Portsmouth are trying to do, have a little read here:

http://p8ntballer-forums.com/threads/portsmouth-uni-freshers-event.154650/#post-1394504

 

[Ricki_diego]

Spot on Liam - Paintball as a punter day is mainly aimed for birthdays ,stags doo's and cooperate team building events....how and why should this ever been seen as a sport when this is some business' only "route to market"?

It's quite simple really.... pretty much a no brainer.

How many times have we seen people come away from a punter day sign up for one of the forums and say how much they enjoyed it?...we've all been there at one stage...unfortunately not all people which enjoyed there punter day, will do this.

there will be plenty of people who enjoyed it, but will never sign up for any forums, and get to know the sport for what it really is...


so the simple answer to this = any site which is big enough to hold more then 1 party of people (there are alot out there) can have walk on players play on the same day as punter players NOT TOGETHER but on the same day.

what does this create?

any punters which take a liking to the sport, get to watch more experienced players with their own equipment - this will generate interest.

we are all a friendly bunch.......punters will also get a chance to mingle and talk to us...ask US questions about the "sport" we can teach them a thing or two and more importantly direct them to paintball forums we are on, and get them into the sport.

cause for concern: will be when punters find out how cheap a box of paint is compared to what they pay on a punter day..but for anyone interested in the sport..that will only be another advantage to get into paintball.... as it was for me, when I first started.