This article was originally written in responce to a letter that appeared in the January 8, 1994 issue of Paintball News.  The letter I was responding to was written by Mr. Keith Lango I believe.  Mr. Lango's letter urged paintball players and promoters to target the 'twentysomething' crowd.  I felt he was a little off target with his suggested technique.
 

                        In response to 'Shooting the Breeze'
                         Paintball News, January 8, 1994
 
    We talk and we talk and we talk about trying to make the sport grow.  It seems like I've heard about every strategy that could possibly evolve short of changing the way we play.  Mr. Lango suggests that we try to appeal to all of the disposable income 'Twentysomethings' out there.  He's absolutely right, they've got the money, the time, and the energy to play.   But there is something he is wrong about.  He gives the impression that it would be as simple as the manufacturers adding a little more color to their ads.  Wrong.  As a 'twentysomething' who is very much in-step with the alternative crowd I can tell you why I can't get my friends to give paintball a try.  Those twentysomethings are also the same people who provide the major backing to anti-gun, and anti violence laws.  They are also the one's who get upset when we have trampled every bit of plant life around the field to death.  In their circles it is socially unacceptable to own or talk about using any gun that shoots anything more threatening than a stream of water.  But surprisingly we find a good many college campus' where there are groups of students who chase each other about the dorms with water guns for a thrill.  Take these same people out and show them a game of paintball and I can assure you that they will hightail it to the nearest bungee jump park with their hard earned entertainment dollars.

    No matter how much we, as paintball players, talk peace and act peace, we must accept that as the game is played now it doesn't 'look' peace.  Because we play in the woods we use camouflage to hide ourselves from our opponents.  It should not surprise us to find that those outside of the sport often have negative associations dealing with camouflage.  I suspect that we have all encountered at some time in our lives 'bad elements' of our society.  These sorts tend to uniform themselves in camouflage as part of their sub-culture.  I have been a player for a long, long, time now, I'm used to seeing people in camouflage.  But even today if I see a shaven head and B.D.U. pants I steer clear.  Take a player in camouflage and throw in something that looks like a gun and we have a recipe for a bad image.  This image will send twentysomethings packing, after all, their lives revolve around projecting a certain image.  That image is something along the lines of adventurous to the verge of irresponsibility, and socially aware to a fault.  Old timers who think of the twentysomething crowd as simply irresponsible may need to think again.  Twentysomethings are the ones who fill the seats not only at the local concerts but also at the local pro life and anti-gun rallies.  Paintball does not fit their image.
 
    If we want the politically correct twentysomethings WE are going to have make changes.  We have to change the way we look and that means changing the way we play.  Getting camouflage out of the sport is the big step.  I'm sure the manufacturers will wail at this, and probably ninety percent of the players, but we need to make a choice.  With the advent of the semi-auto the face of the game changed.  Stealth went out the door and with it the need to hide from our opponents.  In the speedball arena few of us even realize how little we utilize our camouflage.  If we want to see paintball on T.V., if we want major corporations to sponsor teams, and if we want to open the sport up so that a lot of new players will come in, we need to change the way we look.  I'm not saying we should quit playing in the woods all together.  We should create a marketable branch of paintball that would invite new players.  Allow them to discover that paintball IS non-violent, then let them choose how and where they want to play.  As a side benefit of this change think also how much the anti-paintball forces in the world would slack up if we would just show them a new face.  Mr. Lango mentioned Snow boarding as a fashion oriented sport.  All twentysomething sports are based on image.  A new image of the paintball player as an athlete not a wanna-be soldier could revitalize the sport.  Bright colored uniforms and anodized guns, already coming into vogue in tournament circles, could usher in a new age for paintball.  Especially helpful would be a turn in paintgun design away from the firearm look.  Manufacturers should consider the paintball gun as more of a sporting good than a device to mimic firearms.  We need to break the 'paintgun should be like a gun' mind-set.

    The fields themselves could take the first step toward changing the sport.  Clean, visually appealing, Arena-ball and Speedball layouts would obviate the need for camouflage.  By clean I mean not something that has been slapped together out of discarded pallets and wire spools.  No matter how fresh the paint on these things are, they still look like junk.  It's hard to impress anyone by showing them a field constructed with old tires.  Fields need to look deliberately constructed.  The original idea behind Speedball was that spectators could watch.  While smaller field layouts evolved from it, the spectator aspect did not.  Why?  Unless we know what we're looking at and can identify the players at a distance, we can't tell what is going on.  Only an experienced player can do this, and experienced players would rather be playing than watching.  The teams need to be distinctly identifiable by uniform so that newcomers could follow the action from the sidelines.  New players cannot tell what is going on when the game consists of two teams in the same type of camouflage pounding each other in the woods.  If we can't capture their attention as spectators, we are not likely to turn them into players.
 
    It is a pipe dream to talk about paintball on T.V. or any future Major growth until we are ready to make changes.  Oh sure, we can expect to see continued slow growth for some time to come as prices get lower and young people grow into the sport.  But there will not be any explosive or sudden change.  If change does come we need to be prepared for the new challenges and trials the sport will face.  The new image would create a 'poser' element in the sport, but most of us should be mature enough not to let posers get under our skin.  And who knows what other problems could come with the shift in image (Paint shortages? Lines at the CO2 station?).  But these problems would have to be better than some of the ones we face in the Midwest now.  I'm tired of going out to the field and seeing the same faces, or no faces at all.  Well I'm done.  I've very likely offended everyone in the sport from the rawest newbie to the oldest veterans.  But if I convince just one socially responsible team to change their look then it will be worth all the abuse I could ever receive for my action.
 
                                               B. Zane King

                                                -Scarecrow-

                     P.S. . .I was listening to Nine Inch Nails and
                                 Ministry while I wrote this.

    It's interesting to see how things have evolved during the intervening years.  Camoflage is not so common anymore and paintguns do look less like guns now.  The signature at the end of the document is copied from the original.  I was using the name 'scarecrow' way back then too.  Only now i've converted the 'c's to '['s.  That crack at the end about Ministry and NIN is a reference to Mr. Lango's original letter wherein he mentioned those bands.  I no longer recall the exact reference.   I no longer listen to those bands BTW.  Getting old I guess.

A recent letter from a reader 01/26/04

Scott Lassiter wrote:

"Scarecrow, I was reading some of your rants and I agreed with you on most of them. But then one broke my heart.   How could you say that Camoflauge needs to be removed from the sport?   I know it was years ago, but after everything I had read, that was the last thing I expected to hear.   I am a sniper.   That is what I do.   Camoflauge is everything to me, and the rest of my team.   Please explain why you think that paintball needs to expand so badly as to sacrifice one of the only things holding back the maniacs with the 30+ BPS guns out there ripping up newbies.   Doing something like that would lose a lot of players anyway.   This is a really troubling rant for me to read.   It seems to me like you're talking out of both sides of your mouth.   First you say how you love milsim and its great and you hate fast shooting guns, and then you say how camo is out and fast newbie ripping guns are in.   Why do you want to remove camo?"

My Reply

      Thanks for your letter and for your interest in my site.    Hopefully I can explain my stance.

      Actually I need to put an addendum on that rant.    Some years ago I was one of the first to jump on the anti-camo bandwagon.    I choose my position then based on what was good for the sport, not what I wanted in my heart.    It was a sacrifice that needed to be made then to give us the freedom we have now.    At that time the sport was starting to catch some media attention but was still pretty vulnerable to attack from anti-paintball forces.    We were still being compared to Neo-Nazis and Survivalists.    Now, the sport has grown up.    No longer is paintball at risk of being outlawed by people who don't understand it.    One of the main reasons it has grown however is the new face that speedball gave to the sport.    As I have grown older and speedball has lost its appeal to me I have turned back to my roots.    I play mostly woods and scenerio games now with full camoflage and all the trappings of a military engagement.    At the time I wrote that article I would also have blasted anyone who carried a paintball gun that looked too much like a firearm.    Today, my primary marker looks so much like a firearm that I would not dare take it out into public.    Certainly the way I felt then is not the way I feel now, ten years have passed and times have changed.    I consider myself to have been fortunate to witness the evolution of the sport.    As much as I come down on Speedball I cannot deny that it propelled the sport into a new era of growth.   Now, however speedball is feeling the backlash as the march of unchecked technology has turned what used to be a game of skill into a 'pissing contest' that is no longer accessable to new players.    Now it is woodballs turn to repay the debt by offering new players a chance to experience the game without getting 'lit-up'.

Regards scarecrow