Editorials
Paintball Celebrating 25th Anniversary this month
By 68Caliber.Com Staff Editorial
May 8, 2006, 20:17

68Caliber.Com would like to take this opportunity to remind all paintball players the world over that in little more than a month, paintball will be 25 years old.

That’s right.  June 27th, 2006 marks the 25th anniversary of the first official game of paintball ever played, a contest in the woods of Henniker, New Hampshire that resembled nothing like the sport we know today:  12 intrepid adventurers hiked out into a 100 acre plot in the woods to engage in an every-man-for-himself contest of capture the flag, a contest ultimately won by a player who never fired a single shot.

That first game was organized by Bob Gurnsey, Hayes Noel and Charles Gaines who ultimately went on to create the National Survival Game, a franchise corporation that marketed Nelson paintballs and the Nelson Nelspot 007 gun and sold field franchises.  Some of those fields are still going today.

The early days of paintball would be virtually unrecognizable to players today.  Paintballs had an oil-based fill.  Markers were single shot pistols with a hand-operated bolt.  Gas sources were exclusively 12-gram cartridges.  No masks – goggles only, and those were usually shop goggles.  Games were typically 1 hour long, in the woods, on multi-acre fields.  On a good day you could play maybe 6 games and the costs were astronomical:  paint averaged 20 to 30 cents per ball.

The players back then were not the same either.  Average age ran between 25 and 35 and most were professionals of one sort or another – doctors, lawyers, engineers, high-profile management types or skilled tradesmen.  Women?  It would be at least 5 years before most players saw one anywhere near a playing field.

The technology was basic – an hour and a hundred bucks spent in an army surplus store got you your basic kit.  All regular players were jackleg inventors.  The game was different in attitude and skills.  Surrenders were common and a month of weekend play turned you into a ‘pro’.  Attitudes were different also;  the game’s original inventors didn’t take out a single patent on anything, reasoning that it was ‘much better to have a small piece of a very large pie than a large piece of a small pie’.

Yes, things were very different back then.

The 20th anniversary of our sport was unfortunately ridiculously hyped – leaving a bad taste in most everyone’s mouths for the celebrating of historical birthdays. Which is perhaps the major reason why the 25th birthday is about to pass virtually unnoticed.

Take notice.  When June 27th rolls around, spend a moment or two reflecting on the fact that if it hadn’t been for three admittedly crazed individuals, with an insane idea, there would be no paintball, no pro players, no billion dollar industry, no revolutionary technology, no television shows and not a single piece of pie…