From marking livestock and trees for property lines to eventually being incorporated into a game the paintball guns or marker game has come along way. It id believed that in 1970 the first paintball marker was made by James C Hale of Daisy.
In May 1981 through the ides of Bob Gurnsey , a sports retailer and Hayes Noel ,a stockbroker the paintball became a official sport.
The first game of capturing the flag was played by 12 players in June 1981.
The first official paintball tournament was held by the National Survival Game started by Charles Gaines in 1983 where a CASH PRIZE OF $14000 was offered to the winner. 1985 saw the first commercial game gun, called the Splatmaster. It was mass produced and was made of plastic and had to be cocked back before every shot.
This was followed by the first semi-automatic paintball gun called the SMG60, with a hopper-like feeding device founded by Dennis Tippmann.
Finally in 1995 the first electronic paintball gun called the Shocker was released by the Smart Parts company.
Speedball game is one of the major styles that has emerged through the years. It is a fast game and played within close quarters. Most tournaments in the mainstream as well as commercial world are played in this format.
The other style is called the woods ball or recball and is the opposite of speedball. It is mainly played for recreation and is a outdoor game played as capture the flag or defend the base. This type can be converted to massive group games and is scenario oriented.
