Part of the problem is the number of middlemen usually involved in the process...by the time that you get down to the individual consumer, it's been hitched on to provide at least 3 different entities with some worthwhile cash flow, and each of them are taxed so they have to pass on that cost as well. Second, the product liability protection (insurance and lawyers) has to be insanely expensive thanks to the legions of selfish subhuman leeches within the judicial system (and let's not forget the law school professors that teach them such to up their own bottom lines) that scour relentlessly for companies to victimize to make a buck, and who easier to target than one that makes projectiles to be shot at people. Also, there's the classic price trap that fields run into: not many people play, so in order to make a liveable profit, they feel the need to charge more for paint, then people that DO come see the price and decide they can't afford to play, and the problem repeats in a cycle of stupidity, poor marketing, even worse advertising, and lack of strategy and direction.
Sources of the apparently endless loop problem:
1. Few people that have enough money to set up truly first class, NPPL grade fields, have enough wherewithal to charge low prices to grab up new market (Instead of overcharging to try to wring out profit from the small numbers they relegate themselves to.) and stick it out for the long run, and have an acceptable and well utilized advertising campaign get into paintball in the first place. This could be addressed and attacked, but is not.
2. The vast majority of paintball companies' advertising is placed in front of people that already play paintball and thus already know about their products in the first place. For heaven's sake, every brand of marker, paint, and accessory can be seen at most fields within 3 weekends or on the Internet in 20 minutes, making ads which are usually repetitive, cliche, and redundant a total waste of money. Hardly a dime by comparison is spent reaching out to the non playing public to bring in the millions of potential customers that could come into the sport shooting their maker or paint. Idiocy, isn't it? Does Anheiser Busch spend 99% of its advertising budget on the walls of bars and the inside of coolers? Does Nike spend their entire budget on putting swooshes on the surface of running tracks, treadmills, and basketball courts? Are Dell ads only seen in Quicktime or RealPlayer, only on
www.dell.com? Of course not. If you play small, you stay small.
3. For some companies there is a plague of horrid disparity between business and paintball--you either have someone that knows their p's and q's about industry but doesn't step foot onto a field, or can rip through teams like a chainsaw through wet spaghetti but never sat a day in a finance, accounting, marketing, or economics class. They either just do what it looks like everyone else is doing (A rather sound way to lose in business if you want to, being a copycat playing catch up.), or try to half ass and fake it till they make it. For some reason you just don't have Wharton School of Business (not an example I like, by the way, but you get the idea) students thinking "F*** Goldman Sach's, Fidelity, and American Express, I'm going into the paintball business. Man, I can't wait till this weekend to try out my new DYE Cocker!" Until they do, or people that play paintball start getting MBA's, CPA's, etc. and some serious business and advertising sense and for once some aggressiveness, we will continue to look like canoes in the midst of cruise ships.
4. "Extreme sports" market doesn't cut it for two reasons: small size and saturation. Related to point number 2, if someone already has one of the above sports, THEY ALREADY HAVE A SPORT! THEIR MIND AND WALLET IS ALREADY MADE UP! DUH!!! Do Wilson's, Fischer's, or Slazenger's tennis divisions go out onto basketball courts and say "Hey, you should be playing tennis. You run around a lot, play with a bouncing ball, and wear athletic shoes...it's the same, isn't it? Let your basketball, hoop, and $200 shoes gather dust in the closet, and go buy a $300 tennis racket." No they don't. Instead, they show people playing tennis to people that don't have a sport and suggest that they should be in sports and tennis is a good one with good people. They invite EVERYONE. Yes, all whatever billion people on the planet. Oh, and they aren't afraid of their own shadow. They make their stars household names that get out and speak up.
Who pays for this self crippling and bungling? You do. Of course, over aggressiveness to the point of the businesses developing too large an ego and forgetting that they depend on their customers rather than the other way around could result in higher prices in the long run, but that's so far on the other end of the scale from where things are now it resembles a catfish pond trying to grow to ocean size via a garden hose.
