For those that can remember, early in January of this year, Hybrid Paintball released a press statement saying that they were re-organizing their business and taking a break from the industry. This was a shock to many, and immediately drew both heavy criticism and heavy sympathy from paintball enthusiasts worldwide.

However, for those that care to actually read things through, Hybrid Painball is in no way gone. As said previously, their original message was to simply state that they would be stepping back from the market and returning at a later period when things became positive again.

In order to give their customers a greater understanding as to what went on, and to what is going on, Hybrid Paintball’s Chris Corcino attended an interview and revealed a great deal as to what the real story is.

HYBRID: FROM PAINTBALLERS TO PUGILISTS

Near the end of January, Hybrid Paintball distributed a press release that set the industry aflame. Announcing cutbacks within their ranks, while at the same time calling for drastic changes in the industry, the message was seen as everything ranging from inspirational to hypocritical. Whatever side of the fence the commotion came from though, the resultant uproar has still left everyone with many questions. We spoke with Hybrid’s Chris Corcino in an attempt to undo any misconceptions still lingering.

PGi: Okay, to start, can you please clarify that Hybrid is still alive?

Chris Corcino: Yes, we’re still here; we’re just scaling down. At the same time though, I’m just trying to make people wake up. Have you seen that long thread on Nation?

PGi: Not yet, but I can imagine. How’s it going?

Corcino: You know, I’m getting support from a lot of good fields and stores and players, who understand exactly what I’m trying to say, then you’ve got the 12-year-olds who are just mocking me on grammar. You’ve got 15-year-olds who think it doesn’t matter to them, that it doesn’t affect them. I even say in my letter that, ‘it doesn’t matter to you.’ Of course it doesn’t matter to them, until the economy goes down further and your dad loses his job. As far as the angry dealers, they just feel that here is another manufacturer who is deceiving the masses and want to  blame me for their  poor business practices. Look, i was trying to help stores with better margins but instead they reduced my suggested retail price!

I’m just saying exactly what people have been thinking, and I may not be the first person to say it, but I might the first person to say it so publicly.

PGi: In your letter where you’re calling for a, “united front,” where you talking about the pro leagues or what precisely?

Corcino: Everything, it stood for everything. If we were one league we obviously wouldn’t be fighting this much. That would be one less war, one less battle to fight, right? I mean yes, I know you’d have the stock on X-Ball and the NPPL has great history and promotion - why don’t you just take all that and put it together? It’s not for me to say, obviously, but I can still speak it out loud. Bottom line though, a league should not be operated by manufacturers; and if it is, why am i not part of it? Also why is 100% of the manufacturing community not involved in our issues?

We need to quit all this trying to cut the next guy’s throat and work together right now. We need to change the attitude of the kids playing this sport and make it fun again. If a kid buys the plastic Brass Eagle gun then who cares - hey, he’s playing paintball! That’s how we need to look at it; we need to get that community and camaraderie back in the game.

PGi: So, how do we do this? You’re talking a full-on attitude change for an entire generation here.

Corcino: You know what, I’m not saying we started it, but we may have fueled it. We know that we have a niche market that kids love and hate. But if not me, someone with better credibility should.

PGi: [Laughs]

Corcino: I recognized where I could be, because this is where nobody else would be, so I capitalized on that. I supported a certain growth in our industry - you know, look back five or six years ago and our style was Warrior Sports Gear. If you wore paintball clothing anywhere but a paintball field, you were a geek.

PGi: I find it interesting you shouldering some of this blame, but what do you mean exactly?

Corcino: If you used to tell someone you played paintball before they’d say, “Oh really, what’s that?” Now it’s like, “Well, I’ve tried it before and I didn’t have a very good time.” For the past three months I’ve been trying to go to the field incognito to see exactly what’s happening, and see why these kids don’t want to play paintball. All the kids who are into it now are really into it, but a lot of them are scaring the new players away. We have become the biggest clique but still needs public approval. We love and hate HK crew. But the industry is the biggest clique that needs no ones approval but ourselves!  What we  need to express is real news of industry even if it hurts. At least the words are true not rumors based on rumors based on rumors.

The thing is the industry, we set the tone, and I view us almost as the fathers of these kids. The kids follow exactly what we do. We have to embrace that mentality, but the fact is, we’ve been bad daddies. We’ve created this monster and now we’re just going to have to kill it and start fresh. A good old Worr games pump from its own era should have a great value, but to kids who know no history, they perceive it to be low end and that pisses me off. A throwback nike shoe is about $200-$300 … WTF!

PGi: How do you think these changes have come about in such a, if you really think about it, such a short time?

Corcino: I think a big part of it is online. You know, ten years ago there were still spoiled pros, there were still amateurs trying to be pro and so on, but it was such a small niche still. After everyone started talking online, there’s so much information that’s gotten out there, so much misinformation, and everyone’s trying to tell their story, it’s just gotten out of hand. We need to take care of this, but then, how do you mature a teenager right now? That’s exactly how bad it is. Also, kids can play so much online games now that you don’t see them come out and play in the sun.

I went out and played the other day and you know what, it was 40 on 20. The thing is though, the 40 were the tournament players, and the 20 were the new guys. When things like this happen, where do those 20 end up going? Do you think they’re going to come back? We have to be fair, we have to have field referees who care enough to make sure the new players are taken care of, we have to make sure the people working behind the counters at the paintball shops are doing the same. I’ve seen new kids looking at the wall and say, “Oh, is that the new Angel up there?” and then the kid behind the counter’s like, “No, stupid, that’s a Spyder.”  Is that kid going to come back? Hell no.

We have these players out there now though who believe they’ve paid their dues already, so they already know everything, and don’t need to pay for anything.

The industry’s stagnating because these older players aren’t falling for the smoke and mirrors any more. The performance of our equipment’s capped now, we’re capped at 13 to 15 balls per second. We need the new players to keep coming in to keep sales up for all these new products. Thirteen-year-old kids can buy $1900 guns; we’ve seen it happen plenty of times. The new players can keep things going, but we have to nurture them, and that starts from the ground up. We as old school ballers had others teach us respect, discipline and made us love this sport. To the new and really uninvolved its another thing to do. For us, it was the only thing we do.  We cant wait to play on the weekends, talk about paintball during the week, go to paint ball stores late night on thursdays and fridays getting all our shit ready, meet a 7am and get dirty!

We’re supposed to be up there with skateboarding, rollerblading, and all that other stuff. Our age range is like, from 10, to 60 or 70. You know, our sport should be continually growing because it has such a long life-span. You’re stupid if you’re still riding your skateboard at 60 years old.

PGi: Yeah, that’s probably a bad idea.

Corcino: But you can still be playing paintball at that age! You put your skateboard away, but you don’t need to put your paintball gun away. The only reason people do is because they either can’t afford it, or they don’t like the way it’s going.

This is another point I really want to stress. The industry’s trying to get over this hump right now, and the way they’ve decided to do it is to go scenario. And I sort of understand it, I mean they’re supposedly focusing on rec-ball players, but that is the most ridiculous thing ever. This is what I think is going to happen: Sooner or later we’re going to get out of this recession, and at the end of it we’re going to have a shit-load of military-style paintball guns and military-style paintball players. And what’s going to happen? The anti-paintball people, whether it’s the government, city officials, moms and dads who don’t fully understand, is going to look at this and see us going backwards, “We’re teaching our kids how to play war!” And this is why I’ve scaled down. When we get out of this we’re going to have already lost ten years and have to re-justify paintball as a sport and as a family fun game. We’re waiting to get out of this recession, then we’re going to get out of this war and people are going to look at us and see us promoting this military style. How do you think that’s going to go over?  But i have to say that the people i have talking to for the cause has been doing their best to keep paintball out of harms way.

And listen, who’s to say scenario has to be military anyway? There was a scenario game for Hitman, and there was the story line and all that. Well, if we stuck to the scenario story we’re not all supposed to be wearing military clothing, we’re supposed to be wearing suits. If you want to do Klingons versus William Shatner, then be in that scenario, but be those characters! It’s excessively fun, people really love that stuff!

PGi: Well, the biggest scenario game every year is a military one, The Battle of the Bulge down in Oklahoma. Maybe that’s what’s helping fuel this trend.

Corcino: That’s a great scenario too, but what I’m saying is, we don’t have to have every one like that. Not every one needs to have guys dressed up like real soldiers, there are so many other things we can do.

PGi: You said something interesting to me earlier about the difference between the MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) industry from paintball, can you cover this new arena for me again?

Corcino: For us, we used to have a 500 store database, and in the past three months we’re averaging one to five stores dying a day. We feel it as a manufacturer, but for the dealers, it’s just gone for them. And when that happens you’re just scrounging to put food on your plate and pay the rent, the shirt I’m selling to the dealer all of a sudden starts selling for a dollar over cost. So, how do others compete with that? It just turns into a bloodbath. That’s part of this downsizing. Basically, I’m still here, just scaled down, and if you want my product it’s this now, not the way it has been. I’m supposed to sell $30 shirts, in the other industry I’m working in now, they want me to sell $30 shirts. If they see a store trying to sell it for $12, they don’t want to be a dealer.

PGi: So the MMA dealers are essentially forcing you to make money now?

Corcino: Yeah, it’s like, whoa, did I die and go to heaven?

PGi: Just how did you get involved with all of this anyway?

Corcino: I’ll try to make this long story short. In the full history of Hybrid, it really started almost 11 years ago. One of my old buddies was really into all the UFC stuff, he was way before his time, he was making Hybrid fight shorts, Hybrid clothes, bags, stuff like that. When John (Marques) and I started Hybrid Paintball, we just took his name and joined forces. If you wanted to go back and look at old photos, Bob Long’s Ironmen were the first sponsored team, they were sponsored by a website called Proving Ground. That site was strictly fight gear and paintball stuff and that was us.

PGi: Wow, I hadn’t put that together.

Corcino: When I first decided to make shorts there was a group of L.A.-based fighters who decided to start wearing Contract Killer clothing. All of a sudden we started getting these calls saying, “Where can I get those fight shorts?” and I’m like, “We don’t do fight shorts. We just make cheap paintball shorts.” All of a sudden there’s this crossover, I then find out there are so many fighters in our sport - I used to even play with one back in the 10-man days! I’ve even found out Anderson Silva and Dan Henderson play paintball! I’d love to have them do a one on one challenge.

PGi: Send me tickets for that one!

So, how is it breaking into this new industry, have you found it difficult so far?

Corcino: I’m coming from an industry that has this small round-table, a table I’m not welcome to, and now, moving into this new industry I’m coming up to a round-table that’s actually looking for more better members. I’m still picking up the lingo and everything, but I know my place. It’s just exciting to have the opportunities here. It’s also been difficult breaking out of the paintball mentality of slitting our own throats just to make a buck. Now it’s like I want to make sure my roots are down, this is like a second chance for me and if it keeps growing and going well, it’s easy to think that maybe this is all I should be doing. Competition is on the branding and the marketing not how low can you go. You never see beer go cheap, but you do see Miller try to take the dalmatian away from Bud.

It’s tough to keep going when I’m making a part that costs ‘x’ and I can only make ‘x’ off of it. Then I go to a new industry where they…

PGi: … Force you to make money?

Corcino: Yes. It’s just a shock, and it really shouldn’t be, but that’s the state of paintball right now, isn’t it?

PGi: So what are you making for the MMA consumers - I know you have some new shirt designs.

Corcino: Yeah, new shirts, authentic fight shorts, and it worked out so awesome, our bags are perfect for the fighters as well. Even the backpacks, like where we have the gun holsters, well guess what, it even holds gloves. It holds their training gloves and shin-guards, it’s just worked out perfect.

PGi: Man, you’ve been plugging away behind the scenes for a long time, Chris, I’m glad to see you’re still holding it together, and I want to wish you the best of luck on this new venture.

Corcino: We’re still fighting, still surviving. We are deeply rooted in paintball and do whatever it takes to stay even if I have to get smaller.  By then, I will have made new styles and innovations and everybody is hungry for it. It will take time and I praise all who down for the cause. Thanks, Jason.

Check out Hybrid’s latest designs at www.hybridpaintball.biz and myspace.com/contractkillermma

No Related Posts