Viral Marketing

I just received an email from a company with which I've done business in the past, and like most of the companies they feel they have a right to continue email me well after our business has concluded.

This email, however, had something very interesting in it. They sent me a long a self-proclaimed "viral game" that I could play to win some exciting prize.

Now that kind of irritates me. It's not a viral game unless its actually viral, and people are sending it to people who send it to people, etc. Them sending it out to their email list does not make it viral. I'm guessing, and it's only a guess, that it is not even a very good game so it probably won't become viral.

The question I would ask them is whether they think calling it viral will have some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy effect and people will send it to all their friends just because its called that.