The first paintballs were invented by the Nelson Paint Company in the seventies, and were used to mark both trees and livestock from a distance.

In 1981 these guns and ‘paintballs’ were first used by a group of friends in the world’s first game of paintball: ‘Capture the Flag’. The excitement of the game and the accompanying adrenaline rush convinced the friends they had made a great discovery. The game truly picked up when other companies started making paintball guns, the press started paying more attention to the game and more and more people started playing paintball in the mid-80s.

With the newfound hype came the technological advancements: the first guns used CO²-cartridges, which could fire a maximum of ten shots, and had to be reloaded after each shot. The market quickly became dominated by semi-automatic guns which used bigger CO² tanks that could fire up to 400 shots. Finally, compressed air replaced the CO² tanks, since this method is much more stable and makes for a more accurate shot.

Nowadays, paintball is played all around the world by millions of people. In the United States paintball even knows a professional competitive scene which gets broadcasted on dedicated sports channels on television.

Paintball is also one of the most popular group activities when it comes to team building, birthday parties or stag parties.