The Great Geek Manual

Competitive laser tag players have debated this concept for some time. In fact, there are a few barriers to competitive (and especially televised) laser tag.

1-Over time, there have been around 50-55 manufacturers of commercial gear (not to mention homemade gear and toys). Each system plays differently, in some cases significantly differently. Having many different systems results in issues of ‘which system is right’ and ‘what are the rules.’

2-Laser tag tends to be a very fast-paced game where multiple players can score throughout the game simultaneously. This flies in the face of the best sports like football and basketball where there is one ball and one focus to the game. Game formats would have to be created to make laser tag more enjoyable to watch. As a for instance, watching paintball is not terrible exciting for any but die-hard paintball players.

3-Low lighting conditions which are great for laser tag make it difficult to see or put laser tag on television. How exciting would basketball be in they played in the dark?

4-Even open arenas are necessarily dense clusters of obstacles. This makes following the game and filming the game very difficult. In football, with an overhead camera, it’s easy to see the way plays develop. With a multi-level laser tag arena, this would be impossible.

5-Sponsorship would be a problem. New sports do well because there are sponsors. The diffused nature of commercial laser tag and the fact that players don’t own their own equipment make the concept of sponsorship unlikely. Paintball is on ESPN because there are sponsors including paintball gun and accessory manufacturers. You don’t really need specialized personal equipment to play laser tag, so there are no sponsors.

These are just some of the problems we came up with that would need to be solved before laser tag could truly be a great sport to watch. Unfortunately, there are so many great new sports now that laser tag will be lost in the shuffle.

Jason Bock
The Laser Tag Guy