Airsoft Picking up/Dying?
 

Whats everyones opinion? Is this sport picking up, or is it on a decline? From my POV i think airsoft should be played way more than paintball due to many factors. But just curious to what everyone else thinks

Seems some of the old guard are dying off or trickling away and I'm afraid the new crop has watched too many youtube videos.

Numbers wise, I'd say it's growing, but in terms of player quality, it's diminishing in my opinion. Shame I missed out on when the sport was a tightknit group of guys who all knew each other so it really was a sport of honour where everybody calls their hits. Nowadays, we got kids running around calling other players' hits when they don't even have a mag in their guns... -_-

Granted, technology has made the sport way cooler, but has also segregated it into has and has-nots. You show up to a milsim in southern Ontario without night vision, you're target practice when the sun goes down. Guns have gotten nutty in terms of accuracy, range, and ROF, but this also means that a fair amount of damage can be done if it's in the wrong hands.

So sure, I guess the sport is growing, but I'm not entirely sure it's in the right direction. What some fields and hosts are doing with vetted entry and private games are symbolic of the times where they need to restrict the player base to bring it back to the roots of the sport, and I think that's kind of sad that we need to do that now... (and even then... LT isn't hosting his amazing indoor series anymore due to incidents even though they were technically closed/private games)

On the other hand, some of the existing teams are really cool and set an amazing example and are good role models for younger and newer players, and some fields (Siege) are doing kind of outreach programs during skirm nights where they have features of known players and teams.

Growing. There's more fields and more players every day. Paintball has nearly been pushed right off most fields. Most fields that cater to paintball are banning Airsoft because of the decline.

Thhatsmy thought, paintball is just highway robbery at its finest. Most fields if not all charge an absolutely outrageous price for paintballs, which is where the profit lies.

All I know is there arnt any more illusion builds out there. I miss drooling over those. As for players, it seems to be still very tight knit. I just moved to a new area and after eight months of work and hiding in my house it only took one quick search and I'm out playing with a whole new group. And they are as awesome as my team was.

You're up in GP? Is that Jonas, Brad, Garret, etc?

I don't think that's the case. I have watched entire squads who DO NOT run NODS run circles around NOD wearing squads. NODS can help sure, but they don't give you GOD mode at night.

In my opinion Airsoft seems to be growing. I play with a very tight group of people and haven't experienced much of the new wave douchery that others have. Lucky me :)

Agree mostly. Technology has a very important and exponential effect on the game, but it has to be the right tech and used right. Skill and team is always the big picture though.

Airsoft is dieing in every aspect.
No lasers, no burst indoors, no thunder bs indoor, people with polar stars lighting people up, also turning up there fps once walking on the field.

Cheating is way down, very rare now on the plus side

There are to many stupid rules for indoor.

The best part about night vision is watching people who just got night vision walk into things.

Airsoft is dying because of butthurt?

The second is a contributing factor for a lot of the first point.

No longer in GP. In Medicine Hat now. Brad actually sold me a rifle for my better half. Great guy, and I believe I got her gear from Jonas. But there wasn't much game play in the area.

The sport is a rollercoaster in most places, some worse then others. Like mentioned about the old guard are retiring and the new guys are slowly taking their place. For example here in Brooks, we had a slow decline over 3 years as people moved away or quit the sport, then the sport became dead for a couple years and now its on the rise again. With a population of 11k and a player base of over 40...its doing good but the players need to hang out together more. There are atleast 3 different groups in the area that have no clue who the other guys are.

It'll be dead by summer; just when all the kids get out of school and they'll never get to play.