Harmonix employees might just have been caught leaving positive Rock Band 4 reviews on Amazon.
Rock
Band 4 came out at the beginning of October to rather middling scores.
However, despite the media’s reaction, the Amazon reviews have been
largely positive.
But, we now might know why.
It seems like some of the Amazon reviews have been written by the members of the Harmonix development team.
Reddit users screen-grabbed the reviews overnight after spotting them, capturing the full text for each.
Unsurprisingly, some of these Amazon reviews have now been removed.
Related: Guitar Hero Live review
The Reddit image highlights that the post were apparently made by Morgan Milado, who acts as Harmonix’s legal and music co-ordinator, Richard Cody, an audio quality tester and Shawn Witt, lead character artist.
“We play Rock Band as a family, and the Freestyle Guitar Solo (in addition to being extremely fun for adults) is a great way to get young kids up and rocking. I’m excited that Harmonix is committed to the game as a platform, and can’t wait to see what the team adds to the game in the months to come,” said reviewer, Chris Foster.
It’s impossible to know whether or not this is the same Chris Foster employed as a senior designer at the studio unless Harmonix tells us.
Other names implied by the Reddit feed include Nick Mudry, senior designer at Harmonix and product manager Matthew Nordhaus.
Skewing product reviews on Amazon is done to attempt to boost a product’s discoverability, and is a marketing issue with other markets aside from games.
Harmonix has yet to reply to the accusations. 
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
