Far Cry 6 is reportedly taking the road less traveled with its marketing strategy, shaming players who don’t finish the game in a timely manner. Set on the fictional Caribbean island of Yara, ruled by the dictator or “El Presidente” Antón Castillo, Far Cry 6 seems to be taking its premise a little too seriously with the way it’s hounding players to come back to the game.
Managing Editor for GamesIndustry.biz, Brendon Sinclair posted screenshots of an email he received from Far Cry 6 to Twitter. Along with the images, he said, “A lot of games are already ruthlessly designed to maximize engagement, but now they email and hassle you if you dare to stop playing them.” The first image depicts the subject line of the email reading, “You disappoint me, xxx.” With the sentence, “It was amusing watching you fail.” written at the top of the email.
The second image @BrendanSinclair shared shows a quote from El Presidente reading, “Hola, Rojas. I wanted to thank you for giving me free rein in Yara. Take it easy, and know that Yara is in capable hands.” Followed by “SURELY YOU CAN DO BETTER THAN THIS” in large lettering and the amount of time the person has played the game. In Sinclair’s case, “3h”.
Sinclair further commented on his post, “Normalize letting people stop playing a game if they’re not enjoying it.” Though humorous, there is truth to it. Games hassling players after already shelling out the $60 price tag is a bit far.
Far Cry 6 also has Ubisoft email players to report their latest kill counts and captured checkpoints. The email bombardment may be in line with the theme of the game, but it seems a risky move to assume all players will see it that way. Ubisoft may face many players hitting that “unsubscribe” button that is so conveniently placed at the end of marketing emails such as this.