50 cal - does the UK customer benefit?

[NitroBall]

From what i have read and followed from articals and online forums in the past ever since .50 cal was mentioned , i always assumed one of the main reasons for .50 cal was to bring out cheaper paint for the consumer, making paintball more affordable to play, in effect creating a bigger player based (ie more players come into the sport) and have the existing players afford to play more often.

I know there are many other reasons, but the above was highlighted on many occassions.

So as i see it now, .50 cal is to help field owner make more money, not to help build a larger customer based for paintball.

Or just tell me i just read everything wrong.

 

[Echowitch]

Why can't they do both ?

If the savings to be made from switching to .50 are 30% savings then you knock 20% off the price. Quite a saving for the person umming and aahing over whether to give this paintball stuff a try. The site owner still see's a 10% increase in their profits.

 

[Reiner]

Speaking from a field owners point of view (albeit not in the UK), it is not in the best interest for fields to lower the price of paint.

As we all know, fields make most of their money by catering to new and casual players. Unlike in the US, that market is still fairly stable in the UK, from what I can see. Why is that? The US fields have over the years dropped their paint prices to extremely low levels in hopes of attracting more players. Unfortunatley, this has changed the game of paintball to a high volume game, a game that new/casual players do not enjoy as much. UK fields have not followed suit and guess what, they are still getting decent turnouts. Lowering the price of paintball does little but get people to shoot more paintballs. History has shown us that the amount spent for an outing does not change much. So players shoot more for the same price. That's not too bad for seasoned paintballers, but not a good thing for new/casual players.