che guevara said that, man. he was right though
What is the better alternative for racing?
Who the f*** is Neopolean?
3 Likes
Inflation is as inflation does.
The most popular weekly crit locally bumped their entry fee by $5, from $20 to $25 ($30 if you do not pre-register.) You can also buy a season pass for $250 (about 10-12 races).
For that, you get a 30-40 minute race with about 20-40 other people in your ability category.
They are a fun way to spend a Tuesday evening.
So I can either spend $250 on about a dozen half-hour races OR I can spend $250 for a year of unlimited use of Zwift.
Which was a good reminder to switch my Zwift subscription to yearly.
2 Likes
youāre asking the wrong guy. ask @Bath_Salts , that guy loves to race. myself, also
With the price increase and the ongoing UI-degredation for widescreen users iāve been forced to evaluate my subscription.
Iāve been paying for zwift for many years now, and in that time iāve been riding solo or with groups, and a tiny bit of racing.
And from what iāve experienced zwift hasnāt actually improved for me over the many years iāve been riding.
The app has been consistent, but consistently stagnant in performance improvements for PC whilst new competitors are growing in numbers, and the incresing number of competitors is also featuring good performance and similar if not better features and or graphics.
Now i KNOW graphics isnāt everything, far from it, but you canāt expect people to stick around when zwift is both performing poorly and looks like it should be running at 200fps at 4k on a 10 year old computer.
Iāve paused my subscription for now for the first time ever, and if thereās no serious bump in PC performance when i get back over the summer iāll probably cancel this in favor of something different.
Thanks for now.
2 Likes
The ice cream guy.
5 Likes
He was in an earlier version of the Matrix.
1 Like
I saw that movie. Thatās a lot of Kung Fu for a 19th century Frenchman.
indieVelo for sure. Matchmaking (so no sandbagging), great physics.
MyWhoosh currently has terrible pack dynamics but they are working on it apparently.
I am going to use MyWhoosh, a good looking copy of Zwift with nice looking graphics, good bye Zwift!
1 Like
Iāve done a little bit on IndieVelo, but really need them to come out with the ATV app (apparently they are working on it). I loved the physics but like racing people more than bots. But I will give bot racing a go for sure.
1 Like
Working on it, but iOS and ATV will be for paying members only. No issue with paying but to actually try it out for now Iām going to need to get a PC into my cycling room. This of course would have been too much hassle for me to consider prior to the news this week, now though Iām motivated to make a changeā¦
In-game adverts would be much more impactful and wouldnāt be a PITA for users.
Imagine cycling along Tempus Fugit and they have a number of electronic ad boards up for real life gear. Wouldnāt look out of place in game and would provide extra income to Zwift
2 Likes
there are advertising boards at the side of the road in London. Not sure if they actual took any money for them though
Indievelo is a very good alternative. Just tried IV yesterday and I was very impressed with the group dynamics. Definitely much better than Zwiftās dynamics in my opinion. Riding felt more realistic and in line with IRL.
I rode in a big pacer group with some bots and a good amount of real riders. I really like pacers being categorized in watts and not in W/kg. It makes it easy to find a pacer to fit your needs.
4 Likes
Static roadside billboards, in some of the worlds, wouldnāt be a big intrusion. (I remember a discussion of this some time agoā¦here: In Game Advertising Although note that it was shut down and declared that Zwift HQ was ānot remotely consideringā it at the time 
)
Some worlds, or some places in some worlds, they would stick out in a negative way. Anything āruralā, for the most part. Billboards in Neokyo, fitting. But not in the Makuri countryside. Theyād just be ruining the visuals that are a big draw (or are supposed to be). Of course, how much is advertising worth if it doesnāt āstick outā?
Iād be opposed to popup videos that I had to watch or click past, though.
The issue is the CPMs for custom ad units are low, and the cost to sell is high. If you get typical ads for web form factors you can get better CPMs, but in-game ads pretty much canāt simply use those. Also, ads that donāt have a click-through are also lower CPM.
So on an Apple TV for instance when thereās really no chance youāre going to click through an ad youāll find those ads sell at very low rates, and cost a lot to aquire, you need a ridiculous amount of PVs to make those worth doing. I donāt think Zwift has the numbers to make those super profitable.
2 Likes
If weāre talking clickable ads, would those even get any clicks if they were in-world? I canāt see anyone whoās dedicated enough to pay to use Zwift stopping in the middle of their activity to click away to a commercial site for something. From the Homescreen, I could see.
No, probably not, which means they end up being less valuable to an advertiser.
Edit: In these cases what you usually get are sponsorships, which are higher touch endeavors, and custom rather than a standard sale.