Cliff Harris

Cliff Harris is an independent developer who gave up a career at Lionhead to start his own studio and make his own games - but don't they all say that? Cliff has a look at how indie development has evolved and asks if indie studios are truly independent yet.

Indie developer Cliff Harris is on the verge of releasing a brand new game and is feeling a little bit nervous. With life simulator Kudos 2 set to hit shelves on Wednesday, Cliff weighs up the pros and cons of being indie and tries not to stress himself to death.

Guest columnist Cliff Harris is upset this week, lamenting the decline of truly free-form, sandbox gaming on the PC. When did real sandbox games like Sim City become unfashionable and get replaced with linear FPS games? Why won't someone give us back our sand?

Continuing after his recent piracy survey, Cliff Harris wants to ask you a question about how happy games make you and whether choice is always a good thing. Cliff outlines a new pricing model for games based on how happy they make players.

Are all games that phone-home to a publishers server inherently bad? Isn't it possible that in some case copy-protection can be a good thing that can help game design? Cliff Harris ponders how the software that traps us could also be used to free us.

Why do games always cater for the lowest common denominator, wonders Cliff Harris. Why are there no games for educated professionals and why do we have to rely on hacking mini-games in BioShock to explain elements clearly within reach?