Since I started back on this topic in the other thread, figured I might as well post it here too. The combination of the itch to play again and boredom at work right now will make this a long winded post.
It's hard to describe just how much airsoft has changed in the 12 years or so I've been playing. It not any one thing, everything about airsofting has changed.
I bought my first airsoft guns at JungleToy Tempe and Softair Depot. Back in those days, if you wanted an AEG your choice was basically Tokyo Marui or Classic Army. My first AEG's were a Marui G3 SAS and a Marui Uzi. A few of us "brave" people tried out this new company called ICS with mixed results. Cyma, JG, Well, Dboys; those weren't even a thing yet. Back in these days, getting started in airsoft meant you were going to be spending more than $600. You were hard pressed to get an AEG for under $400. Under $300 wasn't happening. If memory serves, I want to say my above mentioned G3 SAS was $330. 1 high cap mag included. Plastic body, no battery. If you wanted extra mags you typically had to choose between TM/CA highcaps or TM/CA lowcaps (or standards as they were often called in the day). Midcaps didn't come until later. You were usually spending $25-$30 a mag. If you wanted a metal body, you were going to be coughing up $150 or more for it. I want to say I picked up a HurricanE HK body for one of my M4's for the low, low price of $220 plus overseas shipping?
Your choice of venues to play at was: Wait for a game at SASCO, wait for a game at Four Peaks, play with friends out in the middle of no where (Bushnell Tanks anyone?), or play with the Marauders. Indoor fields weren't a thing. Driving over an hour to get to the game was expected.
Softair Depot was completely overpriced but they had a far better selection of "nice" stuff. Softair Depot closed down eventually. When JungleToy Tempe closed down, Ron (who was the JT District Manager at the time) turned it into Gearbox Airsoft. Prior to JT, Ron ran a booth out at the Phoenix Swapmeet selling airsoft stuff out there. Many people here don't realize how much of Arizona's airsoft history you saw when you stopped into Gearbox.
Ron as mentioned was JT's District Manager. Jeremiah and Jared whom most of you probably only know as Gearbox's techs were former JungleToy employee's. Occasionally you'd see Paul Wog behind the counter, another remnant of the old days. A few times you'd even see me behind the counter. Without those people (other than me), it's quite likely we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
All of this meant two things. First off you were usually an adult. While some kids were still able to convince their parents to pay the much higher equipment prices, they typically wouldn't spend an hour ferrying their kid out to the game. If they could, those kids usually worked their butt off trying to fit in. Anyone remember Pick? He couldn't wait until he was old enough to go to games without a sponsor. That's not an attack on the younger crowd, simply a fact of life. Secondly this was a substantial investment in time as well. This translated to the majority of players being true enthusiasts about the game and largely being people of the same general demographics. That almost made it a brotherhood for some people. I have friends I still hang out with that I met through airsofting even though we stopped airsofting a long time ago.
Then things started to change. We started seeing new companies offering similar and even sometime superior products at a lower price. At first it was great. MAG midcaps were practically a gift from god. That also caused new players to start flowing in since it was much more accessible now. An indoor field opened up over in Tempe. It was a tiny, poorly managed field. But it was something new and something close. This was the first time you started seeing people have to downgrade their springs in guns. All of that sounds great.
But that also started the shift in the types of players you saw. Up until this point, airsoft was almost entirely milsim. If you weren't wearing full camo, you weren't playing. You often brought two sets in case teams needed to be balanced. There weren't any people wearing blue camo, or tshirts and jeans. I was usually one of the few fat guys on the field which meant a lot of work for me because there was a lot of running involved if I actually wanted to get to shoot anything. Impression loadouts back then mean replicating loadouts from Vietnam or Desert Storm. Not replicating a loadout from Call of Duty. The people who didn't have a military background knew enough to at least follow the directions of the people who did. Lone wolf/rambo stuff was pretty rare.
Now, with the new affordability of airsoft, things started to change. The player base started getting younger, which isn't a bad thing in and of itself but it also started getting less mature and less dedicated. It was no longer an enthusiast hobby, it was a mainstream recreational activity. Thanks to companies like Echo1 and Cybergun, the "entry" price into the world of airsofting was now about $200. If you were happy to just run around with a pistol and no gear, you could do it for half that. In principal, that sounds great. After all, who doesn't like having more money? I know I certainly do.
But that meant airsofting was no longer restricted to the dedicated enthusiasts. Now it was just something you did for fun besides video games (and I say this as a gamer). You could run down to Wal-Mart, buy a gun for $40, rent a mask at a field and call it good. If the gun broke, oh well, it was $40. Just by another one. Regardless of age, that attracted a different type of player. Why bother tuning your gun, it works "fine" the way it is. The age was a factor as well. Many adults aren't keen on hanging out with a bunch of kids, regardless of how that kid handles himself on the field.
That's where the rift started.
That's when teams started becoming a thing. Sure, trying to group of with your friends was always a thing. I'd always look at the roster and pick whichever side had more people on it that I knew. But we weren't a team, we weren't out there for bragging rights, we were just grouping up with friends. You obviously wanted your side to win, but beyond that you really didn't care.
The problem with forming teams is teams get competitive. While that's not a bad thing in and of itself, many of the teams were lacking in the maturity department. That combined with an often oversized ego, started bringing too much drama and general bullshit onto the field. One particular team was involved in more than one fight breaking out at a game. You'd start looking at the sign up roster for a game and go "oh, those guys. I don't want anything to do with them". Some of the teams started becoming more worried about showing up the other teams than playing the game. The after action reports would read more like a soap opera than a game. "Well the scenario was fun, but nobody on Team X calls their hits". "Yeah well we only started not calling our hits because Team Y wasn't calling theirs". Etc. Etc. It got fucking stupid.
So people started going to games purely based on who was organizing the game which meant overall attendance dropped despite the larger player base. A byproduct of this was events were now being organized by far less experienced players. The overall quality of the game dropped.
This pretty much continued until it reached the point we are at today. You have a handful of older players that still put on and attend outdoor games. That's mostly who you see here. Then you have the crowd that mostly just hits up the indoor fields. Those are pretty much a freestyle show up and roll with whatever goes deal so once people got tired of arguing about cheating/stealing/etc, there wasn't much to talk about at the indoor places.
