From Scott Pierce, the CEO of Pacific Paintball:

This note is to inform you Pacific Paintball and its subsidiaries will be filing proceedings under the United States Bankruptcy Code to effect a liquidation of their respective assets and business operations.

The affairs and assets of Pacific Paintball LLC, NPPL LLC, XPSL LLC, PB2X LLC, Xtreme Paintball Fields LLC and Camp Pendleton Paintball LLC will be administered by a court appointed trustee in bankruptcy.  The bankruptcy court will provide you with written instructions regarding how and where to file any claims in this matter.

Despite doing all we could do, we were unable to make the business a viable concern.  Further, in this severe economic climate, we were unable to secure new funding.  It is a truly regrettable outcome, though one which is unfortunately occurring more and more frequently in this environment.

We are grateful to all that have supported us.

With that small announcement and legal paperwork that will be filed, an end to an era has come, and the beginning of a “New World Order” (not my phrase) has begun.

In the US, there are two types of bankruptcy. The first is Chapter 11, which allows a person or company to reorganize and renegotiate their debts in order to pay them off. The Airline Industry has had the highest profile Chapter 11 Reorganizations in the past, and they ‘emerge’ from Chapter 11 stronger and better companies.

In a Chapter 7 bankruptcy, the person or company files the paperwork to declare bankruptcy, and all of the assets associated with that company or person are sold off under the supervision of the bankruptcy court, hence the name “Liquidation”. The assets of the company or person are ‘liquidated’, usually at auction, for pennies on the dollar of their true value.

The implications of Pacific Paintball declaring bankruptcy are far and wide. Obviously this is very good news for the PSP, who were direct competitors to the NPPL. All of the sudden there’s effectively one game in town if you’re a pro paintball player.

For the industry, all of the sudden the costs of promoting your business have just been cut in half. Will this translate to increased profitability?

For the media, all of the sudden there’s a whole lot less to cover on the tournament side of paintball. There are still the regional series like the SPCS, CFOA, NEPL, and The GPL, but for now the ‘big show’ is a lot smaller.

So, what’ll be the fallout from all this? At this point it’s very hard to predict what the future will bring, but the term “New World Order” is very appropriate.