Monday, July 6, 2009

The Silent Majority

How many people who play paintball throughout the world on any given Saturday or Sunday, are players playing for the first time or are players who play only occasionally and only for recreation? I believe that would be the majority of people.

How many people who post on paintball forums and who express their opinions to manufacturers are players who play regularly? I don’t know how many, but I am quite sure that it is far less than the number of players who play only rarely for pure recreation.

Who are the manufacturers and higher ups in the industry paying attention to? Who SHOULD they be paying attention to? The vocal minority, or the less vocal majority?

5 comments:

  1. For forums, generally only 10% actually read forums and even less post. But they are the vocal majority so like so often in life, they are the ones that get the benefits.

    But there are also the retail stores that do not have fields (i.e. most online stores) to consider. They are not interested in people going out to play, they want to sell product.

    If users aren't shooting enough paint, they won't be selling them the new loaders, guns, upgrades, etc. There is a disconnect between what is good for the player or paintball and the stores.

    I've seen many players not play paintball because they can't afford that next good loader. Once they get the loader, they don't play because they absolutely need a new barrel. Once they get the barrel, it's a new jersey, and so on.

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  2. Yes sockkers, those people are what I call "collectors" and nearly every sport/hobby has them.

    There is a disconnect between what is good for attracting an keeping players in the game and the immediate good for paintball retailers. I would go as far as calling it a conflict of interest.

    It seems to be either a short term gain and a long term loss, or a short term pain for a long term gain. Since most business people are quite short sighted, the first is chosen. But we've been around long enough now that we have reached the long term loss portion of the equation. Since the people in business are STILL short sighted, they head down the road of short term gain and long term loss even further.

    That is a trend that is very difficult to reverse, if possible at all.

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  3. Maybe we don't need a paintball industry. I've been to Great America a couple times and nobody tried to sell me a roller coaster.

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  4. But there is a roller coaster industry, albeit relatively small with few buyers. Somebody has to be in business to provide the fun.

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