| The sport of paintball is a popular and relatively new | | | | intense rate and is very popular with all manner of |
| game where opponents on a team use "markers," or | | | | people, but especially young males that are interested |
| paintball guns, loaded with a type of non-damaging | | | | in warfare or war games. |
| paint to engage in all manner of hunting, war and | | | | The sport and the paintball gun gradually evolved in a |
| strategic games. They tag opponents with colored | | | | myriad of ways since those first formative years upon |
| markers by firing specially-made weapons. These | | | | the field, played by 12 mutual friends. Participants in the |
| paintball guns are filled with paint inside gel caps, are | | | | sport began to beg for better guns, so the pump |
| powered by compressed gas and were first used in | | | | action paintball gun was designed and sold. Soon after |
| the 1970's for non-recreational purposes, such as | | | | that, people were able to modify their markers to |
| marking trees or cattle. Those first types of markers | | | | improve accuracy and the rate of speed at which |
| had to be extensively redesigned to adjust the | | | | they fired. Metal parts were quickly introduced which |
| intensity and speed with which the gel caps filled with | | | | could be replaced, so instead of having to buy an |
| paint were shot, otherwise participants involved in the | | | | entirely new marker, one could just replace old and |
| game would be injured quite easily. | | | | worn out parts. Afterward, the upgrade of constant air |
| One of the fondly remembered memories in paintball | | | | was incorporated, allowing for a tank of CO2 that |
| history was the very first "official" paintball game, | | | | could pump out 200 shots, as opposed to the usual 15 |
| started by 12 co-conspirators in 1981, who used the | | | | shots of the 12 gram CO2 cylinder. |
| tree markers. These friends had so much fun that | | | | It is not only the guns themselves which have gone |
| they decided to invest in a tree-marking paintball | | | | through a long evolution in paintball history, but also the |
| manufacturer, deciding from then on to sell the | | | | fields in which the sport is played, the teams and |
| markers to the public as a recreational sport. A year | | | | organizations that people side themselves on, as well |
| later in Rochester, New York, the very first paintball | | | | as the media and culture which surrounds the entire |
| field was opened to the public for engaging in this new | | | | sport. |
| sport. Since that time the sport has grown at a widely | | | | |