From what i've read this all happened way back in 2012 and he was laid off, not exactly fired for not wanting to make the game P2W (though knowing EA it could have still had a result.)
Now why something like this is only just now being brought up years after it happened? i'm sure it's just to cause even more drama for EA and their microtransation drama since it's such a hot topic right now. Some of the former popcap employees even commented and said that his story is false (both the creator's and the guy that started this rumor on a podcast who was a friend of his). They say he was laid off due to the management at popcap deciding to shut down the office where the creator happened to be working at and at the time he wasn't even working on PVZ2 but a different game.
For now just take the whole story with a grain of salt since there's no major proof on either side. For now i think this story was just made up just because of the loot box problems with EA to give them even more drama which is why the story blew up as fast as it did.
