I get more of a Jason Mendoza vibe from Gronk:

To some extent, yes, but this quote by BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk has always stuck with me:

Hopefully one of you folks will, because I’d be interested in the whole story. But I do think one thing is clear at this point: EA is the destroyer of studios and franchises.

In other words, he wasn’t fired BECAUSE he didn’t want to make his games Freemium, but the fact he didn’t want to meant they didn’t have much of a reason to keep him on come layoff season.