‘PvZ’ Creator George Fan Confirms Rumor That EA Fired Him

The creator of “Plants vs. Zombies,” George Fan, has finally broken his silence amid a rumor that he was fired by Electronic Arts/PopCap Studios. He recently took to social media to confirm that the rumor is apparently true.

On Tuesday, Fan finally decided to personally address the rumor and set the record straight to his followers on Twitter. “Regarding recent rumors, it is true I was laid off by EA/PopCap, and also true that I was against making ‘PvZ2’ a freemium game. That’s all I’ll say on the matter for now,” he tweeted.

The rumor about Fan’s firing surfaced over the weekend when “Binding of Isaac” director Edmund McMillen told the story about what happened to Fan on a podcast called Roundtable Live. What’s quite alarming about McMillen’s story is the part in which he claimed that Fan was fired because he disagreed to make “Plants vs. Zombies 2” a “pay to win” game.

“George made a game called ‘Insaniquarium,’ he made it ages ago, and it won a lot of awards. He got headhunted by PopCap, and PopCap hired him, sent him off with two more people in a small office and said hey make a game. And he said, ‘OK I’m gonna make ‘Plants vs. Zombies.’ And he made ‘Plants vs. Zombies.’ It was hugely successful,” McMillen said.

He then added: “They got acquired by EA. EA made that game even more successful. And then they were like, ‘OK we’re gonna focus on this and we’re gonna make a sequel, spinoffs, this this and this.’ George was like, ‘Great, I’ve got an idea for a sequel.’ He developed this game independently as well, an independent mindset with a small team of people. It was personal. Knowing the guy I can see: the characters are personal, every bit and piece is something from him, so it was his baby.”

As per McMillen, things took a turn for the worse when EA asked Fan to make a sequel. “They’re like hey let’s make the sequel, we’re gonna put it on mobile, and we’re gonna do this ‘pay to win.’ And he’s like, ah I don’t know, that’s not a good idea, I don’t really want to do that with my game, and they said ‘You’re fired.’ And he left... This is such a newsworthy thing, and it’s frustrated me for years that there’s not news stories about this,” McMillen said.

McMillen’s story quickly gained a lot of traction that an anecdote that was shared on Reddit swiftly generated over 17,000 points. The story apparently triggered more gamers who were already angry at EA over the “Star Wars Battlefront II” microtransactions controversy.

Kotaku has reached out to Fan after McMillen’s story went viral, but the “PvZ” creator just said that he’ll provide a statement on Tuesday. His Twitter post is that statement. And while some concluded that Fan’s tweet is the confirmation to McMillen’s anecdote, Kotaku explained that Fan’s statement does not actually correlate the fact that he got laid off and his disagreement with the company over plans of making the sequel a “play to win” game.

Two former PopCap employees are saying a different story though. According to them, Fan was actually let go as part of a large set of layoffs in August 2012. The creator was said to be among the 50 employees who were fired when the studio closed its San Mateo, California office. They also claimed that Fan was not, in any way, involved in the creation of “PvZ2” for he was preoccupied with other projects. Plus, Fan allegedly lost interest in the “PvZ” franchise when EA laid out its plans to make it a massive franchise.

EA has yet to issue a statement that could confirm or deny McMillen’s story.