So, another year of airsoft, and another fabulous and successful year of AIRSOFT ACTION!
Airsoft is ultimately the very same game that I fell in love with over thirty years ago, and although the weekend skirmish is still the vital, beating heart of what we do, airsoft has become SO MUCH MORE! Some may say that airsoft never changes, but there are now so many different airsoft disciplines that we can choose from, all of them centred around our shared love for our AEGs, GBBs, HPA setups now, and loadouts; we can shoot on the range, shoot for competition, shoot to take ground and win games, or simply shoot for fun, and what is available to us as airsoft shooters is better, and more accessible, than it has ever been.
Thanks to AIRSOFT ACTION I’ve been able to work with some of the many wonderful and different airsoft communities around the globe, and also within the industry itself. I’ve met many fabulous people during my personal “airsoft player journey” and visited some amazing places … not just different airsoft sites, fields and AOs, but entirely different countries, and one thing that never ceases to amaze me is how welcoming airsofters are wherever you find yourself in this big old BB-chucking world of ours, how much we share, and how much we can, and should celebrate our differences!
It has been my pleasure and honour to meet so many of you, and I hope this will continue as we move ever forward.
But what of AIRSOFT ACTION itself? How is that “magazine onion of many layers” doing?
The first thing I will tell you is that we have never had a stronger, more cohesive, and more dedicated contribution team than we have right now, a team that shares my personal passion to see airsoft thrive in every corner of the world, in all its forms, and for us to document its myriad stories. Stu in Taiwan and Dan in the USA have taken to their roles as Deputy Editors superbly, helping me to move AIRSOFT ACTION into new territory, and bringing in both exciting new stories and new people too!
Although the “AA CREW” continues to grow, I must express my thanks to Stu, Dan, and increasingly Miguel for their steadfast support, and to all the “AA Regulars” who strive to contribute their very best to the magazine each and every month; thank you team, you guys rock! No matter how small your input might be it is truly valued, and it has helped AIRSOFT ACTION move in new directions with excellence and consistency of reporting and writing at its core, winning awards, accolades and new media collaborations, such as that with IWA, along the way.
This year though, for AIRSOFT ACTION and for many airsoft and shooting sports media platforms, has not been without challenges! The nature of social media continues to evolve, and for anyone in shooting sports this evolution continues to be painful; what started out as simple “greying of content” has now moved on to a full-on assault, with specialist content being side-lined and removed, and community pages being threatened or “disappeared” completely.
We made the decision this year that enough was enough, and after continual “greying” when the time came that META decided that AIRSOFT ACTION was done, I didn’t fight this… I EMBRACED IT! We can all be lazy, and it made us realise that we’d been taking the path of ease and least resistance to engage with all of you, those that support and read the magazine each month, and every month…. AIRSOFT ACTION is better than that, and YOU deserved better.
We decided that AIRSOFT ACTION would not return to Facebook when our page was arbitrarily removed, that we would change the way we interact in our shared world of airsoft, and the result of leaving Facebook… NOTHING… not a thing! Removing AIRSOFT ACTION from a failing social media platform made ZERO difference to the number of you that read the magazine every month, hundreds of thousands of you every year, and in fact has led to more of you signing up to direct notifications from the website!
This has proved to us, along with many others, that META platforms have become less and less relevant, not only generally, but specifically to the world of airsoft, and whilst we may still use them where possible to “keep intel flowing”, the focus on them is slowly but surely dwindling as we find other, more effective lines of communication; it just goes to prove that by trying to subjugate and divide our community, META have in fact forced us to become stronger and more resilient together than before, with increasingly less tolerance of outright lies, abuse, and hate inside our community.
Ultimately communication is what AIRSOFT ACTION is all about; we love to write about great new products, and to tell the stories of airsoft communities all over the world, sharing tales of the amazing games and events that are out there; our ability to do this has improved again this year as players tell other players about the magazine first hand, that new readers should check the magazine out because it’s created by fellow players just like them who care not just about a fast “influencer buck” but the very state and future of airsoft itself.
So, as 2024 draws to a close I’m pleased to tell you that AIRSOFT ACTION is in a better place than we have ever been before; bigger and continuing to grow, with more contributors, collaboration partners, and more content than ever to share! You may have noticed our move to a new logo recently, one that is cleaner, leaner and more visible, and this is just the start of a change that will continue to go on throughout the magazine during the year to come. Analysis of the data provided by our digital publishing platforms has indicated that more and more of you read the magazine (with an average read time WAY above the norm for digital publishing!) on mobile devices, so our content must become easier and clearer to read… we’re working on it!
Funding a free-to-read digital enthusiast-driven magazine will always be a challenge, but that is one challenge I am proud and happy to take on, it comes with the territory. Thanks though must go to both our long-term and more recent industry partners who increasingly entrust a goodly part of their marketing budget to AIRSOFT ACTION because they know we genuinely interact with the player community globally. We will always maintain integrity in our reporting, and our industry partners understand this; we will always deal with them honestly and professionally, but we will always tell the truth. To all of our valued partners that have, and continue to support AIRSOFT ACTION and understand how and why we work as we do, you have my sincere thanks.
But 2025 beckons brightly, and there’s work to be done… a lot more work! The airsoft world continues to grow and flourish, and as a part of it AIRSOFT ACTION will be there to comment, advise, cajole, enlighten, and I hope entertain! We will continue to focus on airsoft products that we have tried, tested, and abused before we recommend them to you, and we will continue to constantly cast our net wider to find stories of games and insights to the businesses and player communities that make airsoft truly unique and magnificent!
Thank you all; first and always to the players, but also the game-runners, the retailers, the distributors, the manufacturers, the creators, and everyone that is any way linked to moving airsoft onwards yet again… truly, thank you! I, and we, look forward to speaking to more and more of you next year, and to telling your stories so that fellow airsofters all over the world may share in them.
2025 promises much more from AIRSOFT ACTION as we enter the final year of the RED CELL testing program, with more reviews, more in-depth articles, more show and event reports, and more adventures from the AA LEGION around the world!
As we shut down AAHQ later today, thank you all for continuing to read and support AIRSOFT ACTION; both I and the entire AA Crew wish you all a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS if you celebrate it, and all the very best to everyone for a peaceful, prosperous, and above all exciting year of shared airsoft adventures ahead.
See you all again in January with a new issue on 15th as always!
Bill
