The Ion was the trend starter for a new marketing idea in the paintball industry, whereby relatively high-performance parts would be sold after the absolute lowest price markup, thus allowing the product (Ion) to be sold for an extremely reasonable price. The Ion uses similar principals in design to the higher-performance Shocker marker, however several key factors to the Ion design were altered to allow it a drastic reduction in production cost (allowing the low MSRP price tag for the end-user). In particular, the Ion was cheaper to produce due to its modular body/exoskeleton design, newly designed inexpensive solenoid, and use of internal air tubing instead of machined manifold ports like high-end markers. These, combined with a reasonably low markup in price for retailers, allowed the Ion to debut with an MSRP of $275. The MSRP was later reduced to $200 for about a year-long period, but was increased back up to $225 at a later time. It was again reduced back down to $200.