| Paintball today is very different then when it all started | | | | field was bigger than needed. After the game an |
| over 25 years ago. In the beginning, games lasted | | | | article was published in sports illustrated and an instant |
| hours instead of minutes. | | | | popularity had began. |
| During the 50's a paint company named Nelson started | | | | The game then was very different from the game in |
| making a product designed to easily mark trees from | | | | the 80's. In the early days the fields were much larger, |
| a distance to cut down on the time it took forest | | | | and the equipment was much less advanced. An |
| workers to complete an area. Another popular use for | | | | average player would shoot no more than 40 |
| the product was to mark cattle. This lasted roughly 25 | | | | paintballs in a single day. Today, you are lucky not to |
| years until 3 men found a new use for the paintball | | | | shoot 40 paintballs in a minute. The paint in early days |
| markers. | | | | also was not designed to come out of clothes and |
| Bob Guernsey, Hayes Noel and Charlie Gaines were | | | | required the use of turpentine to clean up. |
| talking about a recent hunting trip and the infamous | | | | Just a few short years after the first game was |
| book "The most dangerous game" were men hunted | | | | played, The very first paintball gun designed for |
| each other for pleasure. The men wanted to find a | | | | recreational play was released to the public. It was |
| way to do this without getting hurt in any serious way. | | | | called the splattmaster and had a huge popularity |
| A friend of theirs pointed out to them a paint gun in a | | | | among the players at the time. Shortly after George |
| catalog and the rest was history. | | | | Skoog invented a paintball capsule that is gelatin based |
| On June 27, 1981 on a 80 acre wooded skiing course, | | | | and water soluble so that cleanup would no longer be |
| Paintball was born. The first game was "Capture The | | | | a dreadful event. Today, paintball has nearly 12 million |
| Flag" in which the players used a Nelspot 007 marker | | | | players in the united states along and many more |
| from nelson. The first game took hours to finish as the | | | | throughout the world. |