PE should make a cure style cocker bolt

[PBSteve]

Well, that kind of depends on what you mean by "good design". If it includes reliability and serviceability, then that makes things more appealing to the market.

And if you include graphic design under "design" then marketing is just design anyway :P

[ironyusa]

How about a gun that's technically superior to any current product offerings, yet is shelved because there's no place in the line up for it. That's what I mean by branding.

[Jack Wood]

Branding is sticking a label on something and having it sell just by association of the name on said label. Isn't it?

[Jack Wood]

How about a gun that's technically superior to any current product offerings, yet is shelved because there's no place in the line up for it. That's what I mean by branding.

There can be numerous reasons for a scenario such as that to occur.

[Lurker27]

The point is that even measurable technical merits in paintball products don't seem to move the popularity needle as much as perception. I don't think anyone is intentionally trying to shortchange the role of designers, I wish there were more rock star designers, but currently Jack and Simon seem to have that market cornered.

Maybe it's an intentional choice, but I'm not in love with the Luxe or rsx, or recent macdev offerings, in the same way that seeing the gtek, lv1, or axe affected me. The m2 is pretty cool but the mechanicals leave me cold. (And somewhat insulted they haven't knocked me off yet)

[ironyusa]

^^^That to a T.

I can't believe (... actually, sadly I can...) the alien morph valve has had mainstream success when a balanced valve such as the (lurker) control freak is a far better design. Things like the hammerhead barrels and their spiral nonsense (I was on a team sponsored by them back in the day) should never have sold. The Luxe, vanquish, RSX, proto rail, M2, etc just aren't that great IMO. The vanquish being one that Simon said he was headed in a different direction and got pushed to the luxe copy is a perfect example. The paragon is brilliant, but I think we can all agree that it's no guarantee it'll be received well by the market. I can't help but feel like there are some pretty smart people on the sidelines or behind the scenes of the sport that could help advance designs, but they don't because they don't want to deal with politics.

Again, I don't mean it as a dig in any way. It's just my opinion, but I do recognize that I see it more from an outsider's perspective than several on this forum.

[Pump Scout]

Hammerhead is the one that cracks me up. I mean, they're not that much different from the old Thunder Pig barrels everyone hated back in the 90's, but because they're "military grade anodized" and mil-sim themed, people think they're great?

I did sell one for what I bought an entire Tippmann 98 for, though. Gun came with the barrel and a weird Indian Springs loader. I didn't want the barrel, and I really didn't want the gun, I wanted the hopper. I'd seen plenty of IS loaders, but never one like this. I figure I essentially got a free 98 and a cool old hopper out of the deal.

[pote]

I got cornered into listening to the hammerhead guys spewing their nonsense for at least 20 mins a few years ago at PBE because I needed their damn stamp and am too nice to just be like "dude youre full of it and Im just here to get my stamp" lol

[Pump Scout]

Oh, they did the "stamps at the booths" game? I had to be on the booth end of one of those a couple years ago. Very quickly, I figured out that people only came by for the stamp (our company doesn't really deal direct with the public, our customers are realtors and lenders), and just stamped people's little sheets.

[vijil]

I'm a marketing/design/branding guy.

Design is about finding a solution to match a series of requirements. Normally "technically amazing" is just one aspect, with "looks to kill" and "idiot proof" being equally important depending of the market. Because ultimately it's all about sales, not keeping the tech heads happy. Unless of course tech heads were a big enough market to be worth going for in itself. I'm pretty sure it's not at least in paintball, certainly not if you're developing entire markers. Brand then is just another word for how the market perceives you, with marketing being the means by which you influence that. Heck just about everything a business does comes under marketing at least tangentially. Making a good product is a marketing exercise in itself, arguably more important than advertising and logos and such.