
What happened to the game we
love? In 2007 there were ten speedball fields in Atlantic Canada. Today there
are only four. Of those four with only three fields are being used regularly.
With regards to one genre of our sport, speedball, how did over a fifty percent
of our available fields happen?
The answer is simple: player decline.
The
events that lead to this decline are more complicated. Of course the lack of empirical
data leads most conclusions on the subject to be a combination of opinion, hearsay
and reflection.
My gut
tells me the reason is a generation of players left the game. The reduction in
players in our genre means field owners have been forced to pin the survival of
their fields on an ever aging pool of veterans, combined with a much younger
albeit smaller influx of rookies.
Let's
be honest, walk-on play generates operating revenue for the field. How
important is speedball to the survival of a field? If anything, speedball is a
diluted ‘value added’ feature at best.

It has
become the accepted rule that players step through the following evolution: Rental-Walkon-Woodsball-Speedball.
For years this has been the norm. Two things happened to this norm: firstly
Woodsball/Milsim became "cool". Secondly the ever aging pool of
veterans began to leave as real life set in. The first issue would take a year
to debate so I will focus on the second.
What
did these veteran players do for the sport. Well as previously mentioned,
speedball generates little revenue to field owners. Besides the actual
infrastructure that a field may provide, there are no additional resources
dedicated to growing speedball. The speedball aspect of our sport is left in
the hands of a few individuals or groups who take it upon themselves to
organize the sport.

So the
crux of the argument is this: Many veteran players who dedicated much of their
career to growing the sport saw their involvement dwindle because of real-life.
All the effort they put into the sport caused them to burn out, they felt used,
or they simply stopped caring. When this happened, the onus fell back on the
field owners who as mentioned before, were extremely reluctant to put forth
resources into an empty hole.

Can
this happen? Sure but we as players, especially tourney players, should be
expected to pay a field fee and a decent amount for paint. If I've learned one
thing in this sport, the race to the bottom or a cost based mentality crippled
our sport beyond belief and it injected a poison which took years to erase.
Players
assuming a leadership role, plus fields willing to support events, plus players
willing to travel, plus players willing to pay a little more, plus experienced
players welcome and help developed newer players, equals a resurgence of our
sport.
I kindof agree, but the problem is that anything where the solution is "we all need to..." - aint gonna happen. People will do good things in dribs and drabs, but the odds of enough people deciding to do it all at once is extremely statistically unlikely short of some enormous event (like, I dunno, Uber buying the NXL and throwing $1B at it).
ReplyDeleteI think the real underlying issue is 1: the GFC, which has had long lasting effects and is part of why we lost a generation that would have just been starting out at that point on their parents money which evaporated. 2: video games - it used to be the case that the best way to get the rush of multiplayer shooty sports was paintball, especially for the competition aspect. Now, that aspect is filled by computer games and in particular esports. So that generation we lost in the GFC played games instead, and now the itch for professional shootingpeople competition is being scratched by games. Sure, paintball is more fun/better/real, but they don't know that.
So how to get them back?
We don't. Paintball as it is wont take off again. We're just no longer competitive with all the inherent faults of PB (perceived pain, cost, cheating, infrastructure, overshooting, unwatchability).
The best thing paintball companies can do is look to the future. Think Magic Leap, Hololens, etc. - we have an innate advantage in that we understand game design and merchandising for real world Ranged Tag Sports better than anyone else, and the gaming industry is moving that direction rapidly. A lot of paintball gear will translate well to AR versions of paintball whicch are still played on physical fields.
Yes, it's a decade away from becoming mainstream, but the smart money is thinking that far out.
Um, appendix A: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK3nQhVZiC4&t=5s
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