Please note the title is misleading. The domain was sold for 1.8 million, but with a payment plan. So that 1.8 million gets spread out of a longer time. Sure some of the initial funding paid for it, but it’s misleading to say it spent most of their funds.
Yeah but publishing is still work though. It’s become much easier to self publish on Steam as a small developer, but there is still value in having a professional publisher. It’s hard to say how much value and sometimes the publisher takes up more than their fair share, but it’s not like zero value either.