“PvZ2 came out, and it’s a tablet, mobile thing first, and, like, they’re like, well look at what EA did, and like, I think the most misconception is that EA forced any of that on us. Like, that was, most of those choices, if anything, were all internal choices that were chosen long before we got bought out.”

(Anthony Coleman^[1], The Oral History Of PopCap Games, 3:00:19)

Microtransactions were PopCap’s fault

• “...you know, we were acquired by Electronic Arts, uh, two years ago, and it’s funny because a lot of people ask questions about how many changes EA has made us do. But in reality, EA has done a very good job of supporting PopCap be PopCap, and has made very few changes to us.” (John Vechey^[2], Minds of Millionaires - Former PopCap Shanghai General Manager Liu Kun Interview 2013, 30:36)
• “When I look at where PopCap is in the transition to freemium, it’s been in our hands. Our success or failure is on us.” (John Vechey, GeekWire)
• “EA wasn’t saying ‘don’t support the game,’ if we had said ‘hey, we’re gonna release this as a premium game, uh, and then start working on a Plants vs. Zombies free-to-play,’ I think everyone would’ve been fine with that from EA’s standpoint. I mean, they would’ve questioned it, but, that's okay.” (John Vechey, What Went Wrong With Plants Vs Zombies 2, 14:06)
• “I understand the arguments from the other side: PopCap wanted to hit these astronomical targets and going freemium was the only way they felt they could do that.” (u/thegeorgefan)
• “My initial mission in coming to PopCap was to make the best games I could. I wanted to make them as fun as possible. Meanwhile, this divide started forming between me and a lot of the rest of PopCap. “George, you gotta understand, this is where things are trending. This is where the money is being made now. The stuff you value is just becoming a lot less viable in our market.” That rift got big enough that it didn’t make sense for us to work together anymore.” (George Fan^[3], VentureBeat)

George Fan was not fired

• “...it is true I was laid off by EA/PopCap…” (@thegeorgefan)
• “Two former high-level Popcap employees both told me a different story entirely. Fan was let go, they said, as part of a larger set of layoffs in August 2012 that left 50 Popcap employees out of jobs. During these layoffs, Popcap decided to close its office in San Mateo, California, where Fan had worked with two other people. The decision was made by Popcap’s management, the sources said, and it came after months of discussion and debate.” (Jason Schreier, Kotaku)
• “George was unfortunately part of the layoffs in Aug ‘12…” (Allen Murray^[4], Kotaku)
• “PopCap asked me after finishing PvZ1 if I wanted to do the sequel and I declined, so my involvement with PvZ2 was only at a conceptual level.” (u/thegeorgefan)
• “But after creating PvZ, its creator stepped back. He chose not to create a sequel to the game. Rather, Fan decided that he wanted to continue working on independent titles. Fan left EA because he didn’t believe in making free-to-play games with microtransactions. He believed in making indie titles, like the Insaniquarium game he made before tackling PvZ.” (Dean Takahashi, VentureBeat)

Some other notable things (will be updated)

PvZ2 didn’t start development until after EA bought PopCap

• “We haven’t been working on it for four years. You know, right after the launch of PvZ1, a lot of effort went into making the iterations of PvZ1 on other platforms. It came out on PC first, then effort was put into the console version, the DS version, the iPhone and then the iPad and Android versions, and those just weren’t straight ports. So a lot of work went into making sure that each of those was handcrafted for that platform. So, really for the first few years after launch, you know, not a whole lot of effort was put into thinking about what would be next. So, it really wasn’t until, you know, maybe a year and a half ago that we really started to look at what would be PvZ2.” (Allen Murray, GamesBeat interviews PopCap’s Alan Murray on Plants vs. Zombies 2, 0:27)

The Removal of the UB and DMG Tracks

• “I wrote that tweet back in 2018 (I was relatively new to the team and learning the PvZ 2 specific ropes, since I moved from a different studio). The change was a decision made by the team before I joined, and that's the rationale I was given at the time. It was never an "EA" thing as much as people love to bandwagon on that and blame everything on EA.” (Haemophilus_EA^[5], Reddit)

Premium plants were not designed to be game-breaking

• “After Far Future came out, a number of core team members left the team. A skeleton crew made Dark Ages in a very short time. We were also at that time just beginning to think about premium plants, fun plants you could buy without having to earn [with real money] that wouldn’t break the gameplay.” (Mark Barrett^[6] in an email)