With so many games constantly fighting for our attention and playtime, Ubisoft is turning to an interesting marketing strategy to get gamers to boot up Far Cry 6. Players who haven’t jumped into Yara for a while are getting emails from Ubisoft trying to get them back into the game. What’s more, these emails are presented as if they’re messages directly from Giancarlo Esposito’s El Presidente character, aggressively taunting players to jump back in to take him down.
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. pic.twitter.com/TRIsV4jnZP
— Brendan Sinclair (@BrendanSinclair) October 26, 2021
A tweet from journalist Brendan Sinclair detailed the types of emails Ubisoft is sending out. One email from Ubisoft had “You disappoint me” in the subject line and “It was amusing watching you fail” in the actual body of the email. The email is supposed to read as if El Presidente, the main villain in Far Cry 6, is personally mocking players for leaving the game so soon. Later on in the email, it says, “Surely you can do better than this”, along with the user’s Far Cry 6 playtime.
However, Ubisoft isn’t just sending out emails to lapsed players. The company is also sending progress reports to people who have put some solid playtime into Far Cry 6.
They also do it if you play pic.twitter.com/7D1mEg6KDS
— Illegaldesi Gaming (@illegaldesi) October 26, 2021
While some players, including the original post, were annoyed with a game company pestering them to get back into their game, others were amused at the idea of a video game villain emailing players to egg them on.
The discussion also resulted in a lengthy thread on Resetera, in which some users called it “genuinely funny” and “good trolling” by Ubisoft.
“I kinda understand some of the concern with games (that’s a larger discussion for another thread), but this is basic marketing rather than something darkly sinister,” one user wrote.
We reached out to Ubisoft for comment, and they said, “The emails sent to Far Cry 6 players are intended to be a fun and clever way to remind folks to come back to Yara and are written as if from El Presidente himself. We’ve heard from the community and we’ve shared their concern with El Presidente. And know that Chorizo does miss you dearly.”
For more, check out our Far Cry 6 review, where we said it’s the most fun we’ve had with the series in nearly a decade.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.