Adam Boyes, PlayStation third-party boss, is leaving Sony

Sony is losing one of its top executive faces.

PlayStation third-party relations vice president Adam Boyes revealed he is exiting Sony Interactive Entertainment. He is returning to game development, which is where he started before joining Sony in April 2012.

“I’ve made the super difficult decision to leave PlayStation,” Boyes announced in an appearance on the PlayStation Blogcast. “I want to go make games again. That’s the next chapter of Adam’s story: Making games.”

After an incredible journey here at PlayStation, I've made the very hard decision to return to the world of game development!

— Adam Boyes (@amboyes) July 8, 2016

Boyes admitted that leaving Sony was a tough choice, but returning to development marks a return to his roots.

“It’s been an amazing run,” said Boyes. “I’ve been here for over four years. I had an incredible experience here.”

You can listen to Boyes’s announcement in the podcast below, it starts at about the 25-minute mark:

Boyes notes that his position with Sony is the longest time he ever spent at one employer. Prior to joining the company, he worked at now-defunct publisher Midway. He produced sports games like MLB Slugfest: Loaded, NHL Hitz: Pro, and Blitz: The League.

After Midway, Boyes moved on to Electronic Arts before founding his own company, Beefy Media, in 2010.

“This is my 21st year in games,” said Boyes. “My wife says, ‘why would you leave? [Every gamer] on the planet would want this job.’ But sometimes you have to follow your dreams. And throwing caution to the wind is pretty exciting — this is my big, dumb decision.”

While at Sony, Boyes is likely best known for speaking on behalf of the company in a number of official stage presentations and other appearances. Most notably, he starred in an impromptu video during the 2013 Electronic Entertainment Expo trade show that was a jab on a confusing game-sharing message from Microsoft.

The above clip is an example of the gamer’s-first attitude that Boyes is associated with bringing to PlayStation. For many fans of the brand, he is partially responsible for making it fun to root for Sony in gaming again after the somewhat disappointing PlayStation 3. Now, as he returns to development, he is taking the attention of a lot of those fans with him.