Re: thereby encouraging the Brits to start hostilities as well ?

[Frank Pittelli <frank-at-rctankcombat.com>]

paul needham wrote:
> 
> Mark and his friends have a different agenda to the RC Combat group.
> 
> But Mark does have a private 'testing ground' and has tried to have a 
> 'battle' with a umpire and rules , so maybe a opportunity to show off a 
> paint ball tank does exist.
> 

Having read a number of articles written by Mark on the subject, I get 
the impression that he is playing both sides of the fence right now.  He 
agrees that the club members should not shoot anything, but he's clearly 
  promoting paintball combat for "corporate purposes".  In fact, he'd 
love to have some company start using his tanks in a "pay-for-play" 
business, like commercial paintball parks.  In short, he has a big 
conflict of interest between his business goals and his hobby goals.

That conflict will increase over time as he realizes that the kind of 
person attracted to a "pay-for-play" sport (15-30 yr old seeking quick 
satisfaction and lots of action) are almost the exact opposite of the 
average scale tank modeler (30-60 yr old seeking perfection and places 
to exhibit talent).  If he builds a commercial viable tank for the 
sport, it will not be anything like what he builds for the scale hobby. 
  And, since the profits from "pay-for-play" are potentially much larger 
than the scale modeling world, his focus will continue to move away from 
his existing customer base in order to stay in business.  Business ain't 
easy.

I'm sure that companies will eventually find a way to make a profit from 
our efforts, but for the foreseeable future I'm not sure if the business 
fundamentals are there to make such efforts successful.  Too few 
players, too many technical complications, too many potential 
competitors, etc.  Besides, it's simply not enough to arm a tank with a 
paintball gun, the composition and flow of the game are just as 
important and such things take years of experience to get them right. 
That's why we continually tweak how the battles are waged on the field 
and we aren't afraid to try new things.  Prototyping the "sport" is just 
as important as prototyping the equipment.  Clearly, 20 years of R/C 
warship battling gives us a good start, but the land game has it's own 
pecularities that need to be hammered out as well.

        Frank "Fun First, Profits Much Later, If Ever" Pittelli