Blizzard wants you to play Diablo 4 so badly that it’ll powerwash your house

Diablo 4’s open beta begins this weekend, opening up the test period to anyone who wants to play — no KFC Double Down sandwich necessary. There’s always room for another corporate sponsorship, so developer Blizzard Entertainment is swapping KFC with home services directory Thumbtack. It’s a marketing match made in hell?

Here’s the deal. Blizzard and Thumbtack are giving away $20,000 in services so that Diablo 4 players can have their chores taken care of during the open beta weekend. Need your house power washed? Have Ikea furniture to put together? Windows need cleaning? Blizzard will handle it — or, rather, they’ll pay for you to hire someone to do it. The $20K is split up into $200 prizes for 1,000 people.

It’s a marketing plan that so dumb it has to work! I don’t know the target demographic of Diablo 4, but judging from this giveaway, I’d venture to guess there’s a significant number over the age of 30. We thirty-somethings may not have been able to participate in the Diablo 4 KFC giveaway (heartburn) but the Thumbtack giveaway speaks directly to the ever-growing list of adult chores (unfair).

Chores or not, something tells me there is no shortage of Diablo 4 players. Blizzard shared Monday that more than 1 million reached level 20 last weekend. Now that’s a lot of laundry left in the basket.