Rock Band 4, the long awaited revitalization of the franchise and of the instrument peripheral based rhythm game genre, is a pretty good game- it’s user friendly, it’s got great gameplay, and it sets a great foundation for the future. It’s a good enough game, in other words, that it should be allowed to speak for itself. Which is what makes this so shameful- even more shameful than it would have been otherwise.
People realized that Harmonix employees seemed to be posting positive feedback for the game on Amazon- and Harmonix has since admitted that these reviews were indeed posted by members of its staff. At the very least, however, it appears that this was not a companywide thing- apparently the employees in question posted these of their own accord.
“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 Eurogamer. “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. We appreciate the feedback from the community, and take our relationship with our fans seriously.”
It appears as though a number of these reviews have since been removed- so good on Harmonix for following through, if nothing else.