You may know that Downtown Watopia is modeled after the city of Long Beach, California where Zwift is headquartered. One of our city’s landmarks is the Pride Lifeguard Tower along the beach path where HQ staff take our lunch rides. The original tower was destroyed by an arsonist in March 2021, but its replacement was rebuilt months later by our city and local communities.
We’re pleased to include the in-game Pride Lifeguard Tower as a permanent addition to the Downtown Watopia landscape ahead of this year’s LGBTQIA+ Pride Month.
Was hoping for elimination races, a new mountain to climb, proper cornering speeds, new powerups, levels above 50, Neobike steering, more avatar customisation, bike component choices etc etc to name a few. But now I’ve seen this, those feature requests can be parked. Delivering the things that really matter
Thank you to the zwift programmers for this. At least it is something year around now and a start to a more long term stuff for the LGBTQI+ community, than just a month.
I applaud the efforts of Zwift to foster a more diverse and inclusive cycling community. Making the pride lifeguard tower a permanent part of the game is a visible message that all are welcome here.
I agree fully @Edwin_Thaves! Its not just for our own comfort & inclusivity, it shares that we are an important part of the community to the folk who don’t see us.
I had no idea it was even there, but if so it doesn’t bother me because such a change doesn’t take long to do, the model and texture mapping is trivial compared to doing an entire route.
I’ve done 3d animation for games before.
It’s a decent detail to show that we can all be inclusive. If it’s a problem then the Zipp disc wheels might need re-texturing so they aren’t colourful either.
Nope it’s nice to do things like this. I’m all for inclusivity. But to suggest that is more important than adding or improving features is bonkers. Zwift is a super inclusive platform by its nature. It has done tonnes especially to equalise the opportunities between genders. There’s a line though where it just feel like misdirection of effort, when the platform is already very inclusive. Where are the synagogues in the scenery so that my Jewish friends can feel included? Maybe weight should be taken out of the physics platform so everyone can compete on an equal level regardless of self-management of health? Where are the handbikes / recumbants? (these should really be in by now). Inclusivity is about equal provision of opportunity, not token gestures. I wouldn’t even call it virtue signalling, it’s worse. It’s virtue-washing. How can you say ‘thank you zwift I feel so included now with my rainbow beach hut’ when they can’t provide avatars to represent a huge number of disabled athletes?
There should be room for both functionality and small gestures like this of course, we’re just not seeing one of the two.
This was originally a Staff initiative (iirc), it’s down the road from the Zwift Office in Long Beach. Making it permanent will have taken less the 5 mins to do.
Zwift keeping it’s employees happy.
Perhaps more white heterosexual males can tell the rest of the world how inclusive things are because their voices just aren’t heard loudly enough.
I’m sorry you are so bothered by a few minutes of development time that sends a message to a marginalized community whose equal rights are continually under attack that they are welcome here.
I’m quite far from anything LGBTQI+ but I love to support and why not just have fun and enjoy 