After posting about how the Proto SLG took a price cut, here I am delivering bad news about a price increase… this time with Draxxus and Procraps paintballs and many other paintball products. Kee Action Sports, the parent company of all these products, released a press release a few weeks ago informing their customers (most of us) that there’s going to be a major price increase within the next 30 to 60 days. Their reasoning behind this action is what you’ve been hearing everywhere: Oil and our economy. KEE Action Sports is reliant upon oil for the manufacturing of their paintballs and paintball products. And as the US dollar consistently decreases, “our only practical alternative left to us is to take action on the price of many of our paintball products…”.
So basically paintball is becoming even more expensive. What’s being done about it? Well, since every paintball you shoot will soon cost you more per shot, the only alternative we can choose is to simply shoot less. The PSP recently changed their maximum allowed rate of fire from 15 BPS to 13 BPS, a good first step. A lot of price control has to do with the end consumer (that’s you and me). Theoretically, if you shoot less, demand goes down, and price goes down.
In my 8 years in paintball, I’ve constantly heard the general public complaining on how expensive the sport is. They’re right, it is; and it’s that very fact that drives most people away from paintball. With an average lifespan for a paintballer being about 2 years, something needs to be done about this. Paintball is becoming a get-in, get-out activity, which isn’t beneficial to players and businesses. To the paintball businesses out there, do what you need to do in order to survive, but remember that the real purchasing power comes from us consumers. Just don’t piss us off too much with high prices. 😉
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