PlayStation indie champion Shahid Ahmad leaving Sony

Shahid Ahmad, the man who's been leading Sony's charge to bring indie games and their makers to PlayStation, particularly Vita, is leaving the company.

"There are no plans to change anything," he wrote on his blog. "Our approach to developers will also be unchanged. We have many talented people across the board who work tirelessly to support developers in bringing their video games to PlayStation. So why am I doing this? Why leave when things are going so well?

"I want to make games again."

Ahmad said he stopped being a developer 25 years ago, but such exciting changes were happening now that he wants to be part of them again. "It's that simple. The team at PlayStation, while sad to see me go, completely understands my desire," he wrote.

Ahmad plans to depart 4th December, 25 days from now, according to a tweet. That means he'll leave Sony three days after his 10th anniversary there.

Ahmad gained popularity for bringing games like Thomas Was Alone and Luftrausers to PlayStation, and for being an approachable but straight-talking personality on Twitter. He says ear-pleasing things like, "We have a really simple motto: 'support, steer, don't interfere,'" and: "This is not about going and looking over their shoulder to check whether they're doing the right thing. This is about finding the talent and enabling that talent to do what they want."

Ahmad spoke at EGX in 2013. His session is embedded below.