Evolution versus Revolution

Merriam-Webster has several definitions for the word “revolution”, but the one that applies to the forthcoming discussion is this; “a changeover in use or preference especially in technology”.  A couple of examples of this would be the computer revolution and the foreign car revolution.

In 2009, Richmond Italia re-entered the paintball industry with a new company (GI Milsim).  He also came back with a revolutionary idea (well, he proposed it as being revolutionary); that being that 50 caliber paintballs would find a big place in the paintball market.  He basically told us that 50 caliber was better (and cheaper) than 68 caliber, and a switch should take place.  At least, that’s the way most people interpreted his marketing.

It didn’t take long for a counter-revolution to rise, with many self proclaimed experts in the player’s ranks, doing tests that demonstrated that 50 caliber was in fact inferior, rather than superior to 68 caliber paintball.  The counter-revolution was so massive and widespread that the 50 caliber revolution was squashed.  Italia stopped publicly marketing the 50 caliber revolution.  50 caliber was dead, or so most thought.

But GI Milsim never stopped making 50 caliber products.  Nor did other companies like Kingmann.  Other companies that were thinking of getting into the 50 caliber market did stop though, for the most part.  50 caliber was a viable option apparently in some parts of the world, where restrictions based on the energy of a projectile leaving the muzzle of a “gun”.  In some parts of the world, 68 caliber didn’t comply, 50 caliber did.  So there was still a market, albeit not as big as the lucrative North American market.

Three years later in 2012, JT entered the 50 caliber market with the JT Splatmaster; a 50 caliber spring powered paintball marker aimed at the young player market (8 years and up).  Surprisingly, this was met with a lot of good reviews from current players.  The difference?  Current players weren’t threatened.  JT wasn’t telling them that their new product was going to take over the paintball world.  JT wasn’t telling people that they would eventually have to change to JT Splatmasters and 50 caliber paintballs.  And so 50 caliber had started to find its niche in the paintball market.

But the evolution (not revolution) of 50 caliber paintball had started long before JT introduced the JT Splatmaster.  There were paintball fields all over North America that incorporated 50 caliber paintball as part of their offerings.  Although 50 caliber paintball was in some ways inferior to 68 caliber paintball, it’s big advantage lay in the fact that 50 caliber paintballs, when shot at the same velocity, carry much less energy.  Less energy translates into less pain when it hits a person.  Since paintball is all about hitting people with paintballs, this fact was not lost on those whose potential customers are concerned with the pain associated with paintball.

I’ve mentioned it on my blog before, that change almost always happens due to economic pressures, unless mandated by a governing entity.  The demand for less painful paintball is an economic reality.  Field owners know this (well most of them anyway).  Those that have previously read my blog, know that I have often talked about extreme/intense and less extreme/intense paintball.  You also know that I feel that the two versions attract different types of people.  Mostly I’ve related this to Rate of Fire (the number of paintballs shot divided by some measurement of time).  I’ve also mentioned that the drop in price of paintballs has majorly contributed to the increase in Rate of Fire.  The problem lies in the fact that field owners feel the need to sell larger volumes of paintballs to meet expenses (low volume sales with low prices doesn’t work out so well).  This is where the 50 caliber paintball comes in.  But 50 caliber paintballs aren’t priced all that much different than their 68 caliber cousins.  So how does this help the field owner?

With 50 caliber paintballs, field owners can still supply the easier to use semi-auto markers that make new players feel like Rambo, can still sell 50 caliber paintballs as cheap or even cheaper than 68 caliber, meaning the same or even higher volumes will be shot, but people playing the game will still have a less extreme experience due to less pain associated with hits.  This attracts a different demographic of customers; a demographic that wouldn’t play the 68 caliber version.  And so the 50 caliber Evolution is slowly taking place, even though the 50 caliber Revolution was squashed years ago.

Will 50 caliber replace 68 caliber paintball?  No, I doubt that will ever happen (unless mandated).  But 50 caliber paintball will grow and that’s a good thing.  It’s still paintball and it attracts people to paintball fields; more people.  I, for one, am not going to complain about that.

Participation in a New Game

If the game of paintball did not exist yet today, and you came up with the idea of shooting each other with little balls filled with goo to eliminate one another, how would you determine how many little ball of goo each person should have to ensure the participation rate was as high as it could be?  There would be no input from paintball players as there would be no paintball players yet.  For this discussion, we will eliminate cost out of the equation.  We’ll pretend paintballs are free for the purpose of this exercise.  We’ll also pretend that the technology exists to shoot at a very fast rate of fire.  We’ll be silly and say the ROF can be as high as 100 balls per second, so as not to limit our choices.

With no input from anyone with experience, it would be extremely difficult to guess how many paintballs should be given to each individual to ensure the highest participation rate.  If you were serious about starting this business/industry, you would need to find out, somehow.  You would need to do some testing.  You would need to invite some random segments of the population out to some trial games.  As you would have no idea at all, you would have to have these groups be armed with various amounts of paintballs and then get feedback on how many players would be interested in taking part in the game at the various levels of paintball consumption.  The bigger the random test groups, the better the information would be.

Common sense would tell us that if we were to graph the results, the graph would look like a hill or bell.  With zero paintballs given to each person, there would most likely be zero people wanting to take part in your new game of paintball (duh!).  At the other end of the scale, let’s be silly again and say one million paintballs were given to each player and each player had to make an effort to shoot all of them.  At that end of the scale we would most likely be very close to the zero mark again, meaning virtually no one would want to take part.  Moving along the chart starting at zero paintballs, with each additional paintball added, more people would be willing to take part.  At this stage of the chart one would also be moving away from boredom to excitement or fun.  As we approach the peak, boredom is eliminated completely (for that majority that resides at the peak) and replaced completely with fun or excitement.

Heading down the slope of the hill past the peak, fun is slowly replaced with something else.  I’m not sure what to call it, but at the extreme end of the scale some might consider it terror.  Where it approaches zero participants again, it would definitely be the virtual opposite of fun.  It certainly wouldn’t be boredom.

As the ingenious person who came up with this new game and wanting to have as many participants as possible, it makes sense that you would give each person the amount of paintballs that the peak of the hill on your chart indicated gave you the highest number of participants, assuming you could only make one choice in total.  A choice anywhere else along the line would result in less participants.

This scenario isn’t going to happen of course and certainly didn’t happen in the evolution of our game.  It couldn’t.  Paintballs were never free and the technology was definitely not limitless.  My point in doing this was to demonstrate that there is a valid reason for putting some sort of limit on the amount of paintballs players can shoot to maximize participation rates.  This is true for both recreational paintball and competitive paintball, even if most competitive paintball players don’t want to admit it.  The exercise would be the same, just the graph would shift a bit.

In competitive paintball especially, higher volumes of paintballs shot increase chances of winning, all else being equal.  When winning is at the top of the list of priorities, as it is in serious competitive paintball, much of everything else is forgotten.  A primary focus, maybe the main focus, then becomes one of ensuring a supply of paintballs as high, or higher, than the other guys’.  Participation rates, although still important, become a secondary focus.

Staffing a Paintball Field

Of all the jobs involved with running a paintball field, staffing and dealing with employees is probably the most difficult, in my opinion.  The number of staff we need at our field varies greatly.  For instance, if my business partner and myself are both present at the field when open for business and we only have a small group of players (which happens often on weekdays with small private bookings), we only need one extra staff member.  On the other hand if we have several games going on simultaneously with 150 or more players present at the field, we might need 12 or even more staff.

Therefore we need a sizable list of part time, on call employees to draw from.  We can’t promise these employees a lot of work, because there often is not a lot of work available for them.  Yet on occasion we do need them, desperately.  Luckily by offering discounts to employees, we have quite a few regular players that are willing to put in a shift now and then.

Like any business, we see a wide range of employees.  Some are great, others, not so much.  Those that don’t do so well, get called back very infrequently, or not at all.  Those that do really well, get called often.  It’s only natural.

One of our competitors advertises that they use only adult refs.  It’s an obvious dig at us, as we have both adult and teenage staff members.  And I’ve seen many a forum discussion over the years about how “kids” shouldn’t be allowed to ref.  Kids can’t handle altercations that take place at paintball fields and can’t stand up for themselves, is the main argument.  It’s a fair statement, IF those things are commonplace at those fields.  But they aren’t at our field.  The intensity level is low enough that altercations are rare.  We also have adult or senior refs on duty every day that could step in if necessary.

Could we have only adult staff?  Yeah probably, but the overall quality of the staff would slip seriously.  Why?  To get 12 or more refs for busy days, we need an extensive call list.  We usually have about 40 or so names on the list to draw from, but sometimes, that’s not enough, especially in the summertime, which also happens to be our busiest time.  Most competent, responsible adults have other full time employment as well as having other adult responsibilities.  Imagine trying to have 40 or more responsible adults on call to put in a shift at a paintball field every once in a while.  It would be nearly impossible.  Sure, you could probably find 40 irresponsible adults that might be willing to show up now and then, but who wants them?

On the other hand, the younger teenage staff we have to draw from is quite extensive.  They are also eager, at least many of them.  For many it’s their first job and coupled with discounts on playing the game they love, they usually try quite hard.  They are often in better physical shape, meaning they can run to paintchecks much quicker.

Some of our younger refs over the years have stayed with us to become adult refs, but most move on to bigger and better things, which is what I expect them to do.  If they are good, eager teenage employees, then chances are they are going to become responsible energetic adults.  They aren’t going to stick around working at a paintball field when there is so much more out there waiting for them.

Therefore, when a paintball field advertises that they have only adult employees, then my radar goes on alert and I wonder how good the overall staffing is.  Unless the field has very little business and needs very few refs, my intuition tells me that some of those “adult” refs may not necessarily be stellar employees.  By not discriminating by age, we have the ability to attract and keep more good staff.  That’s the way I see it anyway.

Bucking the Trends

I was reminiscing today at the field about the good old days of being a teenager.  We were talking about the parties we went to.  They were usually house parties with a lot of attendees where everyone gathered to get drunk.  The music was usually blaring so loud; you couldn’t have a conversation with the person beside you.  Every once in a while someone would put their thumb up and say something along the lines of, “Isn’t this great?”  Of course I would agree, because to disagree would make you an outsider.  People would think you were weird.  Looking back at my youth, those times were not very memorable.  I can honestly say that i didn’t actually enjoy those big, loud parties and I have a feeling most of the other people, if they were truly honest with themselves, didn’t get a lot out of them either.  But it was the thing to do and if you wanted to fit in, you attended.

That’s sort of the way I feel about big scenario paintball games.  I hear people who go to these games and they come back and say stuff like, “It was just insane.  There were so many people there and there was so much paint flying, it was crazy”.  And I believe them.  But was it fun?  I’ve been to big games and it was OK, but I have to say that for the most part, I found it quite frustrating and less fun than the average day of paintball at the local field.  With the number of people on the field there was much less chance for movement.  Being the type of player that likes to be at the front lines and get as close to my opponent as possible, I got shot by my own team in the back more than by the other team.  When I did hit players (with a pump, I only hit them once), more often than not they didn’t call themselves out.  There were never enough refs to make sure people followed the rules.  In general, I just didn’t enjoy it that much.  And I’m quite perplexed that others do.  But apparently they do, because they keep going back.  I’m just not sure why.  Is it just because it’s a big paintball event and they want to be able to say they took part in the insanity?

As I’m getting older, I’m feeling quite comfortable in my skin and I really don’t care a lot about what others think.  I like to make up my own mind about things and I try to form my own opinion, based on how I feel rather than how I am expected to feel or react.  Maybe I’m just not cool anymore. Maybe.  But I just don’t care.

Low Impact, Low Intensity Paintball

The launch of the newly released JT SplatMaster (you can read about it here if you’re not aware of it yet, http://www.pbnation.com/showthread.php?t=3840774 ) has got my mind churning.

From a business perspective, KEE/JT has aimed selling these to kids playing in their backyard and that is what their promotional videos clearly demonstrate.  I’m sure kids will have a lot of fun doing just that (I’m not so sure mom and dad will have as much fun cleaning the paint stains off their siding and their SUV in the driveway though).  The market KEE/JT is aiming at is huge.  I’m sure they will sell quite a few of these.  The novelty, like any toy, I’m sure will wear off, but like the Hoola Hoop, hundreds of millions will be sold to kids all over the world before the novelty wears off.

The whole thing has got me thinking though about how I could use something similar in my business to provide fun to smaller groups of younger and timid players, players that just aren’t quite brave or tough enough to play our current format of paintball.  That market is also very big.  I know from being a field owner that I could get lots of younger players’ (9 to 12 year olds) birthday parties at our field, if the impact of the paintballs and the intensity on the field were considerably milder than what it is now.

But the JT Splatmaster doesn’t quite cut it for me, from a rental point of view.  The upside of the marker is that it needs no air or power source other than that of the user compressing the spring with a pump handle.  That’s awesome.  No CO2 or air needed.  It’s also inexpensive.  The downside is, it’s made of plastic.  Also, shooting 50 caliber paintballs at 100 to 140 fps, although creating impact that hurts very little, seems to be just a little too slow.  I’d have to do some testing, but I think I would like a marker that shoots a 50 cal paintball more in the 175 to 200 fps range (adjustable velocity of course).  I’d also like it made of aluminum.  Without an air source needed, a simple aluminum marker would still be plenty light enough for the 9 to 12 year old crowd.

I realize that to shoot even a 50 caliber paintball at 175 to 200 fps would require a much heavier spring that that in the JT SplatMaster.  That now becomes an issue with strength needed to cock the marker.  I’m not an engineer (nor have I ever played one on TV), but I’m thinking that something with a lever action cocking mechanism could overcome the strength that would be needed issue.

So, are there any engineer/designer/machinists out there up for a challenge?  Assuming you do it right, I’ll take 40 right off the bat and I have a feeling there would be many other field owners out there that would want something like this.  What I’m envisioning is something light, 50 caliber, easy enough for the average 9 year old to cock, removable barrel, spring powered, adjustable velocity (I assume this could be easily accomplished with an adjustment knob at the back to compress/decompress the spring), and a detent (probably a simple wire or rubber one that’s easy on paintballs).  Also, since I am envisioning low intensity games for younger players, the feeder would not have to be large at all.  A “stock class” tube running parallel with the barrel would easily hold plenty of 50 caliber paintballs.  Kids could be given one or two tubes with another 15 or 20 paintballs in them.

So who is in?  I have a feeling there would be a big market for something like this for the “outlaw” crowd as well.  Cheap 50 cal paintballs and no air needed.  Sounds like that would make for a fun weekend up at the cabin.