Players divide into two teams and take positions behind the barriers. When a game begins, players proceed to fire at each other with their air guns in an attempt to eliminate opponents or capture something on the other team's territory. In effect, it retains the form of a battle but not the substance, offering players a reenactment that lacks the stakes or physical injury of genuine combat. There are similar indoor and indoor playing fields for paintball around the United States and a burgeoning subculture with its own tournaments and heroes. There is also a growing arsenal of air-powered guns that can be purchased by players, which parallels the fascination with real guns in the larger society.
Paintball is an example of a new kind of symbolic arena that now characterizes popular culture.
By way of a preliminary definition, symbolic arenas are protected domains that make it possible for people to act out fantasies, embodying their fears and desires, in ways that aren't possible in everyday life. Some symbolic arenas make it possible for participants to directly play out fantasies, either by engaging in physical action and role playing, or by manipulating images or objects that represent them. Other symbolic arenas place the audience in a more passive role, in which it is taken for a ride or watches, and identifies with, characters who do things in fictional situations. These include television, traditional movies and the theater, amusement park rides and the more recent movie rides. As in theme parks, they experience the illusion of transcendence, not only from time and space, but from the roles they play in society.