Guns, guns, guns!

I do most of my ranting on PbN, but I'm going to try and start to centralize it into some coherent efforts located in a central place (i.e. here).

I'm also going to be sharing the latest and greatest thing from FEP here as well. First Endeavor Paintball started in 2005 and fizzled out in 2007 with the loss of most of the original founders of the company and employees. At one time FEP was the primary gun sponsor for the London Tigers professional team, the Jacksonville Raiders (aka Docs Raiders), the Naughty Dogs D2 team, Critical Paintballs D2 team and a few others. They had an arrangement that had NPS distributing their markers, but when they merged with RPS/PMI into KEE, the new management had a great idea about selling off current stock below MAP pricing and telling the vendors (i.e. FEP) "tough shit". KEE then flooded the market with all the Quests they had in stock - selling them wholesale for $100. At the price FEP couldn't compete, and move a single gun. After 5 months of hardly any sales, FEP was forced to close their doors.

Since then I've been working on mods, upgrades and parts for the Quest line of markers with the current CEO of FEP. After a few years of designing new bits and new internals, we decided to relaunch the company. We got the funding, the shops, the designs and the passion. We're serious.

We have 2 new guns we plan on releasing - a high end marker that we are targeting for the sub $1000 market, and a mid level marker that we want to hit the sub $500 market with.

With the resale value of markers in the crapper, we want to help get paintball markers prices stable again. Why buy a new marker for $1400 only to see one online 2 weeks later for $500 less then you paid? You feel ripped, and consequencly you probably wouldn't go out and spend that kind of money on a new marker again - just buy it used next time for cheap.

Anyone see the problems there?

And with the economy down like it is, people who do have the expendable cash to spend on a new marker are taking longer to make the buy. They are comparing markers and their costs, and as we're seeing as evidenced at local fields everywhere, mid level cost markers are on the rise. It used to be everyone had the best gun out there, now hit up a local field and see how many people are sporting DM9's, or a LUXE, or an EGO9. I'd bet you they are far and few between, but hey, the manfuacurers did it to themselves; they priced their top of the line markers out of the range most people are willing to spend now-a-days.

At the same time, manufactures like Dye are showing videos of their DM9 with a Rotor on top shooting 40bps with paint. Then the next day, the PSP, who Dye is a majority stake holder in, announces they want to reduce the rate of fire to somewhere under 10bps for the majority of players.

If you just paid $1400 for your DM9 that you got because of a marketing video from Dye showing it going 40bps, and then you're told you can only shoot, say 8bps, wouldn't you be left wondering why you paid so much for capabilities you'll never be able to use in an event?

I'm not saying anything against the marker or the company, but the logic behind it. I think the major players in the industry need to take a look at what both their hands are doing. The right obviously doesn't know what the left is doing.

But hey, if they don't want to that's fine with me to. They will ultimatly be undone as a result, leaving more room for FEP and our comeback!