It’s very likely that as a part of whatever existing deal he has with EA, he had to specifically sign some form of non-competition clause that made it so he can’t just leave and make “shmalice in shmonderland” and say it’s technically distinct, despite being the obvious follow up to the games owned by EA. Greedy? Yeah. But it’s not like he didn’t know what he was signing up for. There’s plenty of other options for publishers out there who are perfectly willing to not give a fuck about your IP, and just want up front cash and/or a cut of sales. The downside being that, unlike someone like EA, theyre going to have a much more limited reach in terms of getting your game on store shelves, and getting ads in front of eyeballs, if they even do that much.