My goodness...
Originally posted by RePete
It seems few have a good word to say about X-Fire. Doubtless we are not the target market for the show. Surely you must see the value of the show in terms of promoting Paintball? (Note I have not seen the show). How many people might have a go at rec ball after seeing the show? How many parents will have their safety concerns relieved by seeing "Paintball" promoted as a mainstream show on telly? If even one of these new rec players filters through to tourney play, does that not make it worth it? I don't think you're going to find lots of people watching X-Fire, going to play tourney ball and then going "Lets use the atomic bomb!". And as for people associating X-Ball with the Paintball we play, carry around a copy of PGI and put them straight. I do (Though the wife thinks I'm nuts).
Um, that's what I was getting at. It does NOT promote paintball because it doesn't promote paintball as it is. Do people randomly call you different peoples' names as they see fit? Does the telly put random pictures of you on with dyed pink, green, blue, or orange hair when in fact (I'm guessing here.) your hair isn't any of the above at the moment? People would then probably come up to you, call you different names, and ask "Where did the orange/green/blue hair go?" Annoying, isn't it. As for people wanting to go play rec ball after seeing that, which I would doubt they would as few people would want to get into stupid costumes and put all kinds of useless garbage add-ons onto their paintguns anyway and follow moronic plots, I for one annoying to have to cater to the dweebish crap that results as I mentioned above. As for the eventually filtering down to tourney play, THAT is the aspect of the sport's expansion that could seriously benefit from some elevated level of attention. The oft-cited figures involving millions of players should be focused directly upon as the market that should be given as much reason as possible to stay with the sport. NOT BRINGING MORONS INTO IT. For such to be accomplished, in my opinion a handful of goals should be acted towards:
1. Lower paint prices and/or higher percentage BYOP fields. The objective of field and shop owners should be to never hear the words "I can't afford to play more."
2. Streamline some product lines. For crying out loud, people, do 4, 9, 12, 14, and 16 oz co2 tanks all really need to exist? They cost companies money to continue their production and stores to stock them, driving up the average cost of goods sold. Same thing for remote packs. Does anyone with half a brain and 4 days on the field experience (Sadly, a lot of of people employed by some of the companies don't even have that.) not realize that NOT THAT MANY PEOPLE USE REMOTE ANYMORE. IT'S 1 IN 500, NOT 1 IN 5. WE DON'T NEED WAREHOUSES FULL OF +1 PACKS FROM 10 DIFFERENT MANUFACTURERS. Yes, we pay more money because they keep making them and stores keep stocking them, forcing them to charge higher prices to cover the inventory risk (tying up potential income). Yeah, yeah, variety is good, but not on my/our dime.
3. Fields should not under any circumstances sell bags less than 500 rounds. Enourage more paint consumption, which leads to lower cost by volume, not people getting their wallets raped because they don't know better. For heaven's sake be the shepherds not the wolves.
4. Encourage walk ons. They are the repeat players, i.e. people that put up with the initial bull***t costs and deserve better treatment than being comparatively ignored. If left out in the cold, rather than becoming your star tourney players they become the people that say forget it and become thousands of dollars/pounds of lost business that field owners should thwack themselves over the head with pool cues for being stupid enough to lose.
5. Trim the worthless gimmick part sales a bit, or at least show a bit of freakin' decency and moderation in it. Oh come on, don't even begin to try to type with a straight face that there's no difference in a spring kit (useful spare parts) and a rear cocking knob (useless). Get the garbage off the shelves so that #1 newbies can actually get stuff that helps them succeed and not be distracted by worthless crap and #2 if frequent players need something they can get it and not face the aggrevation of walking into a shop with filled out wall space but not a single thing of what they need.
And more things here and there you've probably heard me mention here and there... If you haven't, be sure to read back in the threads a bit. Hey, maybe I might even write a full length manifesto on the potential of paintball and why it is by comparison barely being crawled to at a pace less than that of a 80 year old quadraplegic snail on heroin. I will no doubt cite X-fire as an example of why such is the case.
