The History of Paintball
How Paintball Got Started
The history of the paintball gun begins in the early 1970s, when it was used as a tool for marking trees and livestock. Charles Gaines, Hayes Noel and Bob Gurnsey were the first people to think up a new way to use the guns.
In 1981, twelve friends played the first recreational paintball game using these industrial paintball guns from the Nelson Paint Company on a field measuring over 100 acres (with no masks or safety equipment!). Long stretches of quiet, with people busy stalking each other and worried about whether they were being stalked, were the norm.
One of the first names given to the sport that we now call paintball was “The National Survival Game.” This name reflects the nature of paintball as it was first played – a small group of friends getting together in the woods to play total elimination games. Sometimes the friends broke into teams to play each other, but most paintball games were “every man for himself.”
Over the years, recreational paintball has become more sophisticated. Because more people were playing at one time, using teams became the standards. Different game variations began to form. The most popular paintball game became “capture the flag”, but offensive/defensive scenarios also were popular.
As the number of people interested in paintball grew, so did the development of the commercial paintball industry. The first outdoor commercial paintball field opened in 1982. The first indoor field followed in 1984.These paintball fields allowed large groups of people to meet in one place to play. Paintball business owners were pushed to develop new and exciting ways to keep the players entertained. This further advanced paintball’s history by driving the development of new scenarios and styles of playing.
Commercial fields became responsible for one of the biggest innovations in the history of paintball: the “bunker-style” game. Smaller paintball fields let players start the action quicker, instead of having to stalk through the woods for 15 minutes before seeing anyone. Also, players purchased more paintballs when they were in a constant firefight, which made the commercial fields more money.
The first professional paintball tournament was held in 1983. Even then, the prizes where worth $14,000. Today, major tournaments have hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of prizes and sponsorships. Tournament play started truly making a mark on paintball’s history beginning in 1992, when the National Paintball Professional League (NPPL), was founded.
Paintball has grown to be one of the most popular "extreme" sports. The Sporting Goods Manufacturing Association (SGMA) estimates that 5 million people played paintball in 2006. About half of those were frequent players. Nearly half (48%) were under age 18.
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