Do Airsofters even like Airsoft?

Having your hands on a gun is a lot of fun. Even more so, when you’re with your mates. I love that feeling of being out in the field (whatever the weather), fully loaded rig with all your gadgets to hand, set up in a position ready to engage enemy forces as soon as that crackle comes over the radio to give the instruction. It’s a fantastically immersive atmosphere far removed from the weekly grind and a great escape from your home or work environment.

Just being out in the fresh air is enough, but it’s good exercise and a great opportunity to go and socialise with people, which is good for your mental health too. We have an excuse to buy cool hardware that most gamers, sat with Xbox pad in hand, can only dream of.

And yet, I go to the weekly skirmish and it feels like nobody enjoys playing any more. A lot of them just want photos or videos for their little media empire, and increasingly I see on some accounts that the only way to attract players to go to events now is with raffles and prizes. And the two go hand in hand. The experience and satisfaction of actually playing is being replaced with the chance to win some freebies, or score some kind of sponsorship.

There are some that really actively pursue free shit and it’s turning our media circles into a barrage of advertising. I know that half the hobby is buying, collecting, and trading in military kit and of course, everyone appreciates free stuff but I’m starting to look at adverts for events from the organisers and the more I see “Prizes donated by (company X)” the more I worry about it being potentially a shit event trying to attract customers with rewards. Like bribery. Undoubtedly though, these events reach an audience. And I think, if it’s a player attracted to a site purely because they might have a 1 in 100 chance of winning a pistol or something, then what kind of game experience am I going to have with people who didn’t really care about the game itself?

Acquiring more kit is something we do when we’re not at site. Those boring five days inbetween game weekends where we sit and scroll endlessly through amazon, ebay and online surplus stores for more tactical goodies and then play delivery roulette hoping to get it in time.

The best events I can recall playing in the last 30 years (yeah I hit that milestone recently), have been “private” events where we didn’t even supply toilet paper, or Stirling milsim games where the only reward you got was coming out of the event exhausted and buying a nice hot KFC on the way home. I don’t care for patches or stickers; surely I can buy them if I want them during the week. What I want from an event isn’t a free t-shirt for attending, or to come home with a plastic spring shotgun. It’s to come home after having a damn good time and having those memories. I don’t give two shits if some video maker shows up on site or there’s an opportunity to get a photo taken with someone who has 1472 followers on Instagram. I’ve paid to come and play, not stand around a car park and watch people get phones out and swoon over each other.

What I do want is an organised game that keeps me interested. With clear objectives and teams that are up for a fight rather than sitting around a camping table out the back of a Honda Civic talking about upgrades on guns that haven’t been beyond the testing range yet. I want more trigger time than safe zone time. I’ll even bring my own sandwiches if need be. There was a site up north once called Rifleworks which didn’t have a safe zone as such, just a car park. And you didn’t come back to the car park until the end of the day, which suddenly gave your load bearing a purpose.

I don’t know at what point we started being more attracted to material things rather than experiences, but I do worry for the future of good Airsoft events that decide they’re more than just a shop front. I see some good sites cancel very interesting games due to low numbers, only for others to announce “Hey guys we’re having a BBQ” and half the country turns up for it.

I follow Verage Airsoft a lot and see there are still communities out there who put more into game props and ideas than they do their own loadouts. There are stories and actors, and players turn up prepared to put the work in as a team so that everyone has a good time.

If anyone has any recommendations for good, structured events without giveaways or celebrities in the UK please drop it in the comments. Not that I’ve got anything against the celebrities as people of course, happy to shoot them up all the same, but I’d rather their attendance wasn’t waved around to encourage numbers.

Rant over. Beer opened.