When Facefull launched in September 2001, the magazine set a new standard for paintball news and photography. The first truly international paintball publication set the tone for an entire industry. Over the past decade, it gave our sport the glossy visibility it deserved. In 2005, Facefull ranked as the 17th sports magazine in the US, and paintballers the world over eagerly awaited every issue, full of unique editorial content and unparalleled photography. Facefull was instrumental in getting a new generation interested in the sport, and uniting a community that spanned the globe. It was the first to cover paintball in mainstream media, with star interviews and dedicated articles bridging music, movies, television, and other extreme sports. It also pioneered yearly gear guides, to this day the magazine’s most successful issues. It launched a sister magazine specialized in milsim/scenario to separately cater to the two communities that make our sport truly unique.

Over the past decade, paintball has grown from a small garage-shop hoppy to a multi-million dollar industry. It has grown from an “accidental” pastime in North America to a mainstream sport across the world. We are proud to have been a part of every milestone, from the first paintball products in Walmart to the first episode on television or the first international competition in Asia. Today, the industry has not faltered, it has continued to grow as it should have into a legitimate market, with its ups and downs, as much tied to the worldwide economy as to competition from other activities. The industry has consolidated, with mergers, buyouts and bankruptcies that have left Facefull in a very fragile financial situation as it continued to depend on a dwindling pool of advertisers to cover increasing costs in printing and distribution.

In 2010, the magazine was forced to re-evaluate its business model, merging both Jungle and Facefull into a slimmer publication and cutting down its printing schedule to six issues a year. Its efforts online were also bolstered by an active social media campaign and a revamped website that gave advertisers added visibility throughout the year. The Facefull staff was cut and paid per publication. All these efforts show the commitment of Adrenaline Games, parent owner of Facefull magazine, to continue to operate through adversity. Yet the additional toll of a bad economy, a consolidated industry, and of course, the immediacy of online information, has forced Adrenaline Games to put the magazine on hiatus until it finds a more adapted and sustainable model for its continuation. Whether this will still be print, or Web-only has yet to be determined. The Facefull website and all email addresses will be temporarily disabled.

For customer support, please address all emails to distribution@face-full.com.

It is with great hope that we pass on the torch to the remaining print paintball magazines across the planet, from X-paint in France and Headshot in Russia, to Ramped in Asia and of course, APG in North America. We wish them the very best in continuing to inform and entertain the fans we are letting down today. Because among other things, paintball taught us this: competition may be fierce on the field, but off the field, a community stands as one.