If you want proof that Zwift is still clueless about their “Fitness” platform, I think the response to DC Rainmaker says it all:
“Will completed activities in Rouvy update your Zwift training history/load/etc…? Nope, at least not anytime soon. Maybe down the road, but it didn’t sound like this was on the radar.”
That should be one of the first things that they incorporate
Any discount off one or both subscriptions if one subscribes to both?
Doubt it. Or they must give customers from Zwift acces to Rouvy without extra cost. But that probably wont happen. I tried Rouvy and didnt like it so I am not going to pay extra to gain acces to that.
But have seen enough merges and buy outs to be a bit pessimistic about this. All that talk about getting more people fit and moving is just sales talk to make it look good. In the end it is a business descission and its made to make money. Either by merging the platforms together in one way or another or to have Rouvy killed off in the future to just take out the competition (like BKool and others that have vanished). Just as the ‘nothing will change for now’ line we always see in things like this.
My predictions for the next few days, months, years:
Rouvy CEO will quit within a few years with a lot of money in his pocket because he sold his company at the right time announcing he needs a new challenge.
Prices will increase. Someone has to pay for this.
People will get laid off from one of the two companies or on both. With merges like this there is always staff or employees you dont need anymore.
Zwift can become more lazy since there is one competator less and pricewise they cant compete with MyWhoosh.
Will be fun to see how it all goes forward. So far it doesnt look like it changes much for Zwift and us as Zwifters. Until the price increase that is.
Anyone who planned to “vote with your feet” by jumping from Zwift to Rouvy, well your feet just got hacked off by this news!
I’m in the pessimist camp regarding the merger. I don’t think it’s going to be good for users, and possibly employees, in the long term. Kind of frustrated that any threats I have made in past posts here and at Zwift Insider about switching platforms are now null and void! Are the veteran users being listened to here? I’m really wondering now. The merger is just more wax to clog Zwift’s ear canals…
@Peter Maybe we should start a pool on one of the prediction markets for the opinion predictions in your post 
No it just needs to be a price that the market will bear, and that might not include you, but that’s OK if the price is acceptable to enough people. That price might be less than two subs at the current rates, but it also doesn’t have to be zero. There are people who pay full fare for both apps right now.
I pay for Zwift annually as well as SYSTM annually.
But I rarely use SYSTM.
I use Wahoo products in my shop as well as on the road, and I like to support them.
Not at this time, and maybe never.
I hope they keep the software separate in regards to subscriptions. I personally don’t like Rouvy…the augmented reality looks weird to me. I am sure they will have a pkg deal for both formats at some point at a discounted rate if you get subscription for both, I hope however they give their members a choice in the matter.
Although I will say this new feature I’d like to see enhanced for zwift like a customized climb portal…
+7
The ROUVY Route Creator
is the primary feature that allows you to record, upload, and ride your own custom outdoor routes, transforming raw GoPro video and GPS data into a high-quality, 3D-mapped immersive experience. Currently in beta, it allows users to create virtual reality routes with augmented reality (AR)
It has been 3-4 years but when I last tried Rouvy, I think 3 other live (I think “live”) riders was the most I ever saw. If they can run 5000 participants on one ride, with a real route, Rouvy might survive.
Different people want different things though, I thought wahoo rgt was good especially with the magic roads and the actual drafting showing the watt saving but wahoo killed that with systm.. Not everyone wants the gamified zwift experience which is fair enough
One of the things I would like to see soon is not loosing my week streak if I ride on Rouvy. I mean if you are accepting outdoor activities from Wahoo and Garmin I would love to have this implemented.
I like Rouvy but my reputation/stats in Zwift are important. I would even pay for both platforms if we could have a joint reputation.
We need a discount if we are going to buy both subscriptions. I have been a loyal swifter for many years, but have thought about Rouvy because you can do Iron Man courses on Rouvy. It just makes no sense to have pay full price for Ruby and for Zwift. If they could come up with a packaged deal price that was reasonable I’m sure a lot of people would jump all over that.
That’s true - I see among the Rouvy users they are pretty annoyed with this acquisition and worried about it, they went with Rouvy to have real life routes and not the game experience we have here.
Hopefully it will continue on for them. I was a Fulgaz user for a long while until Rouvy took over them.
It’s good to have different options for different users.
A small ride on Zwift would be enough to keep that going. Perhaps a few kilometres should be adequate.
Rather interesting move here. Not sure how much Rouvy was splurging but man they were definitely putting some heavy sponsorship into Youtubers…
I suspect the softwares will be kept separate for the forseeable future / maybe forever.
I wouldn’t put it past Zwift to eventually purchase a full on trainer producing company as well down the road.
However, if I were to enter dreamland, I wouldn’t be opposed to optionally choosing Climb Portals in Zwift to be Rouvy’s videos… since I suspect we’ll never see any visual changes to CP ever.
But that’s just me not caring for Climb Portal’s visuals/lackthereof.
Would not surprise me if the climb portal would complety move to Rouvy with the real videos and that you can get a new bundle for a little more dollars to be able to use that.
It may be quite the opposite. I do not believe that any Zwifter who tries Rouvy, would consider it better. But any Rouvy user who tries Zwift is likely to stay here as the gamified and social experience is quite a change. Over time that will bring more users to Zwift which may be the reason for this acquisition.
Not just that, some of the portal climbs don’t reflect the gradients of the real thing accurately. I’ve ridden some of them in the real world.
Some of the climbs in Fulgaz for instance (owned by Rouvy) I have ridden also in real life and they were really accurate. I used Fulgaz to train for them. One of them was in both Zwift and Fulgaz, the latter was much more accurate in elevation profile and gradients.
If it’s off a few % here and there, does it really matter?
You’re still going up.
It does matter for the experience that corners don’t have excessive unrealistic gradients, and that you don’t have descents/uphill sections where there should not be.
It’s interesting to see a “does it really matter” with regards to accuracy of the gradients. That’s pretty basic stuff.
Near enough isn’t accepted for other parts of Zwift. Look at bike shadows, a small thing but if they are off, it’s an uproar.