Harmonix has released a statement addressing the studio's alleged self-promotion on Amazon for the recently released game "Rock Band 4."
As pointed out by various sources, some of the users who gave the game a 5-star rating and positive reviews on Amazon are actually employees of Harmonix.
Harmonix released the game earlier this month and various gaming sites have already published their own reviews for the game. Generally, that game has received positive reviews and Gamerant even gave it a score of 4 out of 5.
However, this doesn't seem to be enough for the studio since some of its employees, including those who actually worked on "Rock Band 4," headed to the game's Amazon page to give it the highest score.
The reviews left by Hamronix personnel were first spotted by Reddit users. Gaming news site Destructoid picked up on the story and noted that it could affect the decision of consumers to purchase the game feedbacks in online shopping sites can play a huge factor in swaying buying behavior.
According to the site, some of those who gave the game a five star-rating are Matthew Nordhaus, a project manager at Harmonix, Jayne Tan, the studio's consultant, and Chris Foster, who works as a senior designer for the studio.
Although some of them, like Nordhaus, admitted that that they work for Harmonix, it still feels wrong when companies review their own products because obviously, their opinions are biased.
According to Harmonix, they have asked the employees to edit their posts on Amazon to identify themselves as staff members of the company. The studio also mentioned that the reviews made were sincere.
"Harmonix has clarified its internal policy about posting reviews of our own products on retail sites, and we've asked that existing reviews be edited to identify Harmonix employees or be removed entirely," the studio said in a statement to Destructoid.
"While we believe the reviews posted by a few employees were sincere and without ill intentions, as a studio we don't believe these are appropriate actions," Harmonix added. "We appreciate the feedback from the community, and take our relationship with our fans seriously."
"Rock Band 4" came out on October 6 for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 platforms. Although the game had a few issues on launch day, such as songs crashing and bugs affecting certain instruments, Harmonix announced through its website that it had already fixed these problems.
