airsoft pisses on paintball

[Baca Loco]

Originally posted by Hotpoint

Only one thing though... who's rattled your cage recently Rancid? You've been even more controversial than the norm of late (which is really freaking saying something)

He's been field-testing Buddha's 7-day underwear---AGAIN (ba-dum bum), and it's plainly made him grumpy, among other things.
Airsoft AND paintball? I don't think so. Wouldn't be prudent. Problem is, as has sorta been suggested already, the perceptions involved--which work both ways. It would tend to alienate paintballers--tho maybe not Brits--who don't and won't accept the association with rec-ballers much less airsofters (?) and it would tacitly support the general perception that lumps all paintball into one generic category--wargame.
However if it ends up being a separate Brit mag--sure, why not?

 

[Cube]

Originally posted by John Molloy
That is not to say that air soft doesn't have its place, it is just as valid as a fun pastime as rec-ball.

because it looks more like the real thing. Markers don't (on the whole) look like guns air soft stuff does.

apologies John for the strategic snipping

I'm afraid I'd have to agree with the validity argument, but.... I play rec-ball predominantly at the moment and I'd hate to see airsoft linked to paintball, it's a different game with different toys.

One of my mates at work has played paintball and doesn't like it 'cause the "guns" look nothing like 'real' ones. I'm not going to have a go at him for wanting to play at 'war' with realistic gear that's his choice/fantasy, (I did the real thing briefly in HMTA and wonder why they don't if the gear/attitude is the obsession), but I recognise that there is a significant difference between paintball and airsoft, if only in the attitude of the players, even at rec-ball level if not at 'punter-level'.

Airsoft players may want to tell me I'm wrong, but hey, this is my opinion.

If it's so big 'n' popular give it it's own magazine, let paintballers distance themselves from the airsoft crowd and lets see what the press makes of them.

Please don't put a section for it in PGI.

 

[John Molloy]

No prob Cube dude

 

[Tyger]

Ok, I'm probably putting my job on the line here, but what the hell.

Many of you brits don't get a magazine we do int eh states called "APG". I like APG, it serves a purpose in the game. Every hobbiest activity needs diffrent levels of magazines, APG is one of 'em.

Anyhow, they advertize airsoft in APG all the time. This month they're selling a "Secret Agent Package", a gas-powered "Desert Eagles" and an "UZI style SMG electric". They also advertize tha you can purchase laser sights, extra magazines, and custom parts too. Now APG doesn't have anything in it talking about airsoft, other than the ads in there for the stuff.

I've never played airsoft, I have been exposed to it. At Skyball 2000 a group of enthusuiasts brought their airsoft gear to the skydome floor. They set up a course, called it the "Murder House", and let anyone that wanted to try it. The reps wore camos, gave the participants "SWAT jackets" (Yes, they said SWAT on them...), and let two people at a time shoot each other with plastic BB's in a 20X20 maze.

The players at Skyball have been forbidden to wear camouflage from day 1 of Skyball. But these guys were allowed to not only wear camo, but revel in all that paintball has been trying to avoid for the last decade.

Airsoft would be better off staying where it is. Small, unnoticed, and on it's own. Paintball doesn't want to deal with the politics of having extremely "Realistic guns" in the pages of PGI. You think that some of these guys have hissy fits now? HA!

On the other hand, there is some crossover. A friend of mine has airsoft gear, and I know of fields in Minnesota that do airsoft days too. But I don't think that a paintball magazine, specifically the BEST paintball magazine on the planet, should be covering airsoft. ESPECIALLY when "PAINTBALL GAMES" are the first two words in the magazine title, NOT "Paintball / Airsoft"!

-Tyger

 

[CROOKED-POPO]

Don't associate it with paintball at all. If you want realistic and still paintball, why not buy simunition which fires from a real gun and ejects a real brass casing like we train with on the force? That's not paintball, and neither is airsoft. Yesterday in roll call we all got handed a picture of that new paintball gun that looks like an M16 and is mag fed and ejects brass cartridges and were told to watch out for them because the last thing we need is to shoot some kid who doesn't know better and points one at us or someone else. Real guns should be the only thing that look like real guns. A kid in one of our apt. complexes was robbing people last year with a bb pistol that looks alot like a S&W handgun. When a day shift officer stopped him to investigate, he nearly got blown away reaching for it. If people want to use real weapons, they should join a gun range, the military, or another organization where they can only hurt themselves.

 

[Tortoise-Licker]

Hmmmm...

Okay Rancid you say that airsoft is bigger then paintball and what do you think about giving them a section in pgi. This has good and bad points, as has already been pointed out this would have a detrimental affect on the quest to move tourney ball away from wannabe rambos, and yet it may get said rambo's to move from airsoft to p8ntball.(some airsoft players can pay £300-£500 for them silly little guns )
How big a section would it be anyhow? I mean there are alredy sections in PGI that I don't read (manely joeschmoe) but do I want a magazine where I don't read a whole section?
Also How long would it be before it becomes an airsoft magazine with a paintball section? the main problem is that many retailers don't stock PGI so how are you going to get airsofters to see that it now has an added section. Give it try anyhow or do one of those mini magazines that many mags do, then if you get any interest give them their own mag.

 

[rancid]

who wants a heated debate?

140 views but only 16 replies. Is this another example of how tourney players have the biggest gobs?

The interesting thing is the subject Flash brought up: who reads pgi?

You'd assume it was tourney players.... but we sell more mags and have more visits to the site than there are tourney players! Just repeating a stat: 44k unique visitors to p8 last month.... summat like 11k newsletter subscribers, but only say 500 peeps commenting on the boards. Question, who the **** is everyone else?

Anyway, by the by.... anyone want to 'come out' and push for airsoft in the mag? I mean, why the f should pgi be responsible for paintball's image? Are you telling me that if a site owner was offered 20 airsoft weekends a year he would turn it down? Why should we turn away £150,000 ($225,000) a year just so paintball can pretend it's a bona fide sport? (ok Jon, off you go.)

 

[TJ Lambini]

screw airsoft

whoever said real gun ads in pgi is a good idea was right - every baller in tha US carries a firearm so you got a captive market.

 

[Hotpoint]

who wants a heated debate?

Originally posted by rancid
Why should we turn away £150,000 ($225,000) a year just so paintball can pretend it's a bona fide sport? (ok Jon, off you go.)

Well it really all depends on whether you feel you are purely in it for the money I suppose. It is not for me to dictate whether the Industry should think beyond their own short-term interests or not. In my personal opinion you should but I'm a self-confessed idealist.

From my perspective as someone who is motivated not by money but by the love of the game, any association with AirSoft is extremely bad news. I would argue that the major thing holding paintball back from the mainstream is our horrible image problem which has the general public automatically equating us with exactly the kind of wargaming types to whom AirSoft appeals

I will however reiterate my comment about "short-term interests" though. If paintball ever did go mainstream the influx of major advertising revenue from people like Pepsi for example, wanting to place an advert in PGI would swamp any money to be made from Airsoft surely?

Whilst I realise that the vast majority of Paintballers play Rec in the woods not speedball (I played RecBall for 8 Years before I became a TourneyBaller) but even in my camouflage days I was wearing it so as not to be seen, not because I was pretending to be in Vietnam

Can we have a few more RecBall opinions on this? Are you guys as unhappy as I am at any association between the worlds best Paintball Magazine (PGI) and AirSoft?

 

[TJ Lambini]

And also those

'How to attract women' and phrenomone ads that they get in mens mags...christ, most ballers are sociopaths whose idea of a date is leering at a pic of Carmen Electra (or going out with their second cousin to church for our Arkansas brethren), so they gotta got some meaty response in PGI.