Plants vs Zombies Creator Fired by EA for Refusing Pay-to-Win System

http://mp1st.com/news/plants-vs-zombies-creator-fired-by-ea-for-refusing-pay-to-win-system

"With all the ruckus over microtransactions, loot boxes and the like, one company has been the punching bag of gamers more than anyone else, and that’s EA. It seems we can add one more story to add to the list.

Over on YouTube podcast BaerTaffy (via Reddit), Round Table Live! featured video game designer Edmund McMillen (Super Meat Boy, The Binding of Isaac) who talked a bit about the recent controversy surrounding a recent game and alleged pay-to-win trappings. While talking about the recent hot button topic, McMillen namedropped Plants vs. Zombies creator George Fan, and how he (Fan) was fired for refusing to add pay-to-win elements in Plants vs. Zombies 2. We’ve transcribed what McMillen shared below."

You guys want to hear an industry story that has to do with EA and an independent developer? This is a semi-unknown story, and I hope I’m not stepping on toes with it, but I know I can…as long as I say it like a “slightly fuzzy on the details.”

It involves a friend of mine, George Fan. So George made a game called “Insaniquarium.” He made it ages ago and it won a lot of awards, and he got headhunted by PopCap. And PopCap hired him, set him off with two more people in a small office, and said, “hey, make the game” and he’s like “okay I’m going to make Plants vs. Zombies.” And he made Plants vs. Zombies, it was hugely successful, and they got acquired by EA, EA made that game even more successful. And they were like, “okay, we’re going to focus on this and we’re going to make a sequel, we’re going to do spinoffs, this and this.” And George was like, “great! I’ve got an idea for a sequel!” And he developed this game independently as well, with an independent mindset with a small team of people. It was personal. Knowing the guy, I can see the characters are personal, every little bit and pieces is something from him. So it was his baby. And they’re like “hey, y’know, let’s make this sequel, start on the sequel, and we’re going to put it on mobile, and we’re going to do this pay-to-win.” And he’s like, “ah, I dunno, it’s not a good idea, and I don’t really want to do that with my game, and they said, “you’re fired.” And he left.

"Important to note: Fan being fired from PopCap (who was then already acquired by EA) is nothing new, since it was reported way back in 2012, though the actual reason for Fan’s termination has never been revealed until now.

McMillen also mentioned that Fan has not signed any NDA of any kind, which means he can talk about it. We’ve reached out to Fan and if we hear back, we’ll let readers know what he says. Fan is currently working on an indie game about a mutant octopus called “Octogeddon.”

Does it surprise you that the industry seemed to have this problem even as far back then? Share your thoughts below in the comments."

I find it somewhat ironic that the original game is free again on origin enlight of this news. Though kudos for him for sticking to his gut.

These stories are only good when I imagine the EA people having funny german nazi accents.

That's unfortunate because the pvz games are awesome, I certainly have no regrets getting the 2nd one at launch but I do remember it having quite a grind to unlock all the characters.

The thing that made the grind longer is that most of the time you could not unlock a new characters whole, it would only allow you to unlock a piece of that character, and only when you had assembled the 4-5 pieces of that character then you would unlock him. You still got a bunch of characters from the base game though, but a lot of the cooler characters were locked at first.

Ain't EA a lovely bunch of folks? And man, are they not having the most swell of days recently?

Hope EA goes bankrupt.

They won't. They're a bigger gaming empire than Nintendo at this point.

If you don't do what your boss says, you'll probably be fired, no matter what the industry.

EA budgets and publishing power = EA control.

Indies that want total control should steer clear of them.

Or if in general, you're a developer.

Okay guys, some new information. As much as I like to smoke a pipe on EA's stumbles, I like accurate facts more.

First, from the man, George Fan, himself:

So, yeah, implication but not direct correlation. Note that Mr. Fan is NOT under a post-termination NDA.

Also, some former Popcap employees have disputed the allegation, including Allen Murray, the former producer of Plants vs Zombies 2:

Still, as he said, he doesn't know anything about the details of his departure, but he does seem to imply that George Fan was laid off as part of company restructuring, and not because of his opposition to the shift to F2P.

So, yeah, take this as you will.

Too bad they have FIFA to save their ass.

Are they selling players and/or teams for Fifa yet? If not you can guarantee their planning on it.

Fifa 2019 or 2020 perhaps..all the good/top players from each team get locked behind paywall. :P

More likely locked inside loot boxes with a low chance of getting a premier league player and high chance of getting a Scottish 2nd Division player.

@GarGx1: haha..yea that's a more sinister plan so Evil Arts will go with that one. :P

Probably the most we'll get from him. Even without a real NDA, there's always an unspoken NDA in this industry, which is the threat of being blacklisted. It's already a tough industry as is, being known as "that guy", even if you're only telling the truth can be far more trouble than it's worth.

@ConanTheStoner:

True enough. I just threw that in there to dispell a common speculation among discussions about this kind of thing.

@uninspiredcup: No it doesn't surprise me. I'm here laughing ?

It's like you folks haven't seen the multitude of films made in history of how cut throat big corporate is. Yes shit is done, yes business at the level of hundreds of millions or billions is cut throat. It's like people are just realizing this lol ?

I'm sure there's more to it than that.

I'll just leave this here. EA is so messed up.