Because everyone sees "without cause" as a negative. Of course if he was fired with cause, then he would have no chance to collect any benefits while looking for new work. He would also be unable to receive benefits if he were to quit...... He might have still been held to a NDA, NC, or other legal obligation that would keep him from working on other projects that he wishes to work on outside of Bungie. There are a multitude of reasons why it could have gone down this way, and reasons why it is being kept quiet. He might have been pulling in to large of a paycheck and doing this would allow him to be brought in on a consultant basis and free up money to be invested elsewhere in Bungie. Who knows? only time will tell what happens, or if his termination was a good or bad decision. Until an official reason from either Marty or the BoD, everything is just knee jerk reactions based on speculation. I just hope the best for Marty in his future projects.