paintball 2.0

When what was to become ‘paintball’ was offered as an alternate to NSG franchises, Freeman and Perlmutter had to convince people to start fields and thus creating customers for their version of survival games. Fast forward some 20+ years and I think Paintball could use a reboot.

A better product is needed, with todays gizmos and gadgets and video games, Paintball has not evolved far enough to keep the interest of the next generations. Fields don’t make enough money or often have the savvy to market the experience. They don’t make enough to develop their product.

The challenge of a reboot is made easier by the existing paintball networks. This isn’t intended to reboot the sport, tourney side, that market is so much smaller that will come later. First lets get more people playing a ‘paintball’ like game a few times a year and grow the base. Then later we can use technology to enhance the sport play.

This is a grass roots goal, first change how people are introduced to the game of firing paint filled pellets in a chess like match. A live action first person shooter. Set aside those already hooked, we aren’t asking them to convert per se, we are trying to give the first timer with few expectations that “hunt or be hunted” rush of the original survival games.

The real difference is that paintballs have always been disappointing by their ballistic nature. They don’t go where a novice user aims. Higher rates of fire have always been desired to compensate for poor accuracy and because shooting a gun a lot is often fun in its self. This games focus is 50% about strategy and about 50% ‘making the shot’.

First the equipment:

.50 cal ‘bullet‘ shaped paint filled projectiles.

Clip fed, 100psi operation co2 or air.

90* break barrels, no plugs/bags needed.

optional proximity sensor warns of ‘enemies’ flag/base and boundaries.

electrical rental packages with ref ‘kill’ override to disable markers optional.

Accuracy example: half a goggle @ 125 feet with “redot” sight, aim and click.

Equipment limits:

pistols 250fps

Sniper (pump/bolt action) 300fps

AR (semi auto ~7bps) 270fps

MG (assisted ROF burst, chain fed etc hard limit 13bps w/’overheating’ time outs) 250fps

Strategy highlights:

-100% margin @ MAP for sanctioned fields and stores with direct association. This isn’t to just hand them money, this is to make retaining good help, making improvements to the facilities and long term prosperity possible for all parties.

-Helmet based protection, blast shield type lens, washable silicone gasket keeps moisture away and there is no foam to rot. No sinus pressure, one strap doesn’t need to be tight enough for discomfort to tenuously hold goggles on.

-Sanctioned fields must charge minimums for entry / rentals and must offer majority non speedball/airball, offer upgrade rentals (See above)

-Centralized partnerships on the world wide web to market all sanctioned fields. Don’t say paintball 2.0 is a “management builder” to develop teamwork, communications, leadership, and initiative. SHOW IT, then make sure the sanctioned fields run games and present the experience in such a fashion.

-The brand name for this experience is licensed for use in the partnership. As opposed to the ‘right’ of field and store owners to trash the paintball business, this protected partnership is a privilege.

-More than just capture the flag, several game formats are explained and demonstrated on the base websites and required for sanctioned fields.

There are plenty more finer points and larger ones. I worked closely with some pretty smart people over the years but this type of reboot has always been terrifying. In many ways, many people just won’t get ‘it’ but the point is to build a top to bottom business plan that works from the manufacturer to the consumer and is sustainable and marketable. I don’t think paintball currently is either, except for a very elite few.

This idea at its base was presented long ago, but what they heard stopped at .50 cal and never gained any real focus. It would take about 15 people to change the ‘game’ for everyone. But it would have to involve about 100 fields that were on board with the plan. The products are easy, the finances are attainable. The execution is exciting and challenging.

I guess in the background I should have added that the challenge of this, and the flaw of paintball as I see it is that the foremost focus of PMI/direct connect was to get people to consume paintballs. And yet the profit of the paint was pretty quickly degraded. And its been pretty much erosion since.

If you have to buy and hold anything physical there should be a profitable markup but the focus is the quality of the game and experience and that has a fee associated with it as well. The goal is not to sell paint, its to provide entertainment.

The mark up is in direct contrast with the current dealer buddy system for the most part.

Action village etc can sell pb2.0 guns and supplies, but they will be at a costing disadvantage to a field that may sell 10% of what said monster retailer sells. Why? Said monster internet dealer does nothing for the growth of the industry. OK, they might supply the guys in Idaho playing renegade pb2.0 but real ‘mining’ for new players happens at the organized field, and they need to make the most per sale, not the least.

Its very legal as a “marketing kick back” for what is important, the field.

Achievements.

Achievements keep my kids grinding on a video game long after it has been conquered. Achievements are subplots and small victories to be had.

Paintball 2.0 needs small achievements so customers have more positive experiences. A few cheap ribbons for a “nice shot”, capturing a sub fort, making a surrender or organizing a round winning charge.

I am a big fan of large rental numbers on the rental guns so that players are ID’d by the refs/emcees. They can use these numbers at the end of a round to recognize and velcro little achievements on players in front of the group. Long standing field achievements, with the discretionary ones, provide a reason for a walk on player to come back and work on sub challenges and get on the leaderboard. Why not charge extra for a special paint color for one or two walk ons to work on the ‘monster kill’ achievement of 20 in a row without ‘dying’?

More comments on the ‘guns’

My kids nerf arsenal is way more fun to screw around with, from the chainfed monster to the bolt action sniper and break barrel shotgun. IF paintguns repeated this ‘fun factor’ and could shoot an alternate corn starch foam ball we would play in the yard and if they only shoot paint these are the type of guns we would screw around with in the woods – and many many rednecks would follow suit. The idea of a milsim gun is not an uninspired spyder with a fake clip a hopper and tank on remote damnit! That is not fun, its heavy junk.

Competitive shooting

Shooting targets is enjoyed by many potential consumers. However, shooting real guns takes large wide open spaces and larger safety concerns. Paintball Target ranges are a side thought as the paintballs themselves are vastly disappointing in their lack of a repeatable shot. With the improved ballistic flight path an additional focus can be made of speed shooting and small target areas replicating room clearing and standard speed accuracy competitions for local field tournaments and achievements.

Why would a paintball field not have a pro shop?

Because they can’t make money on the gear. When they own a field, they are the focus of the pb2.0 business model. They are a partner for the whole thing to succeed and are treated as such. Action village for example, selling lots of gear, just buys Bob a new house. A field doing well, even if its far from perfect, stays operational and is the primary gateway for new players.

Let me drive one point home with a clear striking example.

Current staple paintball product: CO2 20oz tank with pin valve. Absolute cost to manufacture in china and land in US complete alibaba price: $9 sold at actionvillage, as low as $12. Standard mark up for most of the things you buy in the US = cost x 5 or 6 (like a baseball bat for example) What is worse, the dealers don’t buy from china they buy second or third hand! NO ONE is making money off this model. China made guns are almost the same mark ups. It will take dramatic and bold innovations that basically make the old dried up products obsolete. And one of the primary things to do so is stop the focus of the consumption and get fields to realize they are in the entertainment/fantasy business NOT the paintball reselling business.

The ‘leaders’ of the paintball industry should be innovating, teaching and leading -really as they once did. Instead they copy, sue and play chicken with price structure and all the while the player participation and customer base disappear. Paintball de-evolved into the wild west. Innovation efforts became “one-up-manship”. There is no company with a great plan leading. Giving a consumer what they think they want is one thing. A master plan and developing a better consumer and a more sound business model is another. There has been a lot of chatter about what went wrong, what can be done – this is my version of connect the dots and the solution I believe in.

Going back to pump guns with shitty (but cheap) paint is not a great product to put on the table. Just boosting the prices of the current un-inspired 2 decade old blowback design or just making paint 120/case – when you can find the exact brand or type of paint for 30- reeks of a rip off.

Any tinkering rework of current products means that everyone out there with idle machines will rush to copy, or one-up. This was clearly seen with the refocus on the ‘milsim’ crap that became the rage. They sunk money and effort into basic ‘innovation’ and since everyone did it, that market became murky and over crowded in less than a year.

With real innovation -that differentiates- there is no cost comparison. You are free to demand a more sustainable price structure based on your marketing and teaching of the tangible benefits. And a paintball manufacturer or the like can’t just make an identical product and sell it for less playing margin chicken.

This is a reboot so the -businesses- have a working business model.

My opinion is that things are so bad, you need to basically scrap the whole thing and start over.

Eventually, profitable businesses could then reboot the ’sport’. And there are some really good ideas for that socked away. However, people can’t sponsor and over spend advertising and marketing dollars when they can’t pay the bills.

Some will argue you can keep what is here and just make it field paint only and charge 200 a case.

In most scenarios the standard procedure is for a former customer to get angry and start a half assed field down the road, with cut throat pricing. Because both businesses are based upon using the same suppliers and equipment. Potential customers are more than likely to try the cheap guy have a half assed experience and that is it for their paintball adventures forever.

OR like most consumers will say, make everything as cheap as possible and everyone will play more and more people will show up.

A simple way to point this flawed though is the ion sold 10s of thousands when it was 300, why did it not sell Millions when it was half that at its lowest?

Many have the paintball bug, and they want their fix cheaper. That is not what this is about. This is about providing a better Product which intern is about making money. And in a way, I think, finds balance between making it fun and entertaining, with a path that makes taking paintball on as a hobby feasible and relatively affordable. And it can be reasonably protected from the gross erosion products go through now.

Again, the ‘pie in the sky’ thought was a competitive alternate to what we now call paintball.

If you could jump in your paintball time machine what key things would you change?

I am throwing out a mental exercise.

Fields would be the focus.

Online sales? Why not just handle that from the central office (but sep entity) and cut a dividends check to the fields that are on board. Why not control online MSRP prices higher than the fields proshop MAP so the consumer feels like they are getting the hook up locally? Want to sit in your basement and sell stuff online? -Sorry your application was denied.

Heck, the marketing videos would compare and contrast how bad paintball is with its hoppers and bulky tanks and inaccurate paint. How the rental goggles suck. How getting shoved out on air ball field sucks. People have worked to make ‘paintball’ and ’sport’ go hand in hand. I believe that’s Not what the office group or stag party are showing up to play. PB people could have the word sport, for now, I’d use it against them.

The alternate is back to Survival Games -with modern manufacturing and marketing. IF the target consumer can play halo, GOW and COD all day, why can’t a live action survival or live action first person shooter game be marketed?

Say you are a field and pro shop. Sure you may still carry pb stuff, but your rentals are this 2.0product. You have a design, manufacturing and marketing partner doing everything they can to help you make money. Get people in, show them a good time, some decide to play more/buy their own gear. Both parties win. IF you start crushing the local ‘paintball’ fields with your superior product and experience, or really having any success at all. Then yes, one day someone will figure out how to circumvent the key patents on the innovations etc and they will come knocking with an undercut offer… I’d be willing to bet it would be hard to just jump ship from a profitable relationship for much less than an innovation overhaul that I have been posting about.