Steamspy lists their games as having sold [in the millions](https://steamspy.com/dev/Spiderweb+Software). If they wanted to, they absolutely could afford a B+ tier art guy going through the basic steps of making their backgrounds not look like programmer art, for a few months.

You can actually see some decent concept art and character design in their current games but they're drowned out by a stubborn refusal to actually change the overall balance of detail, suffocating those decent artworks in a sea of blurry/noisy backgrounds. It's a colossal waste, really, only explainable by a stubborn refusal to "learn art", which I can respect by itself, but the post comes off as utter denial of that even happening.

It's okay to dismiss art direction and make that some kind of design philosophy, it works for their games. But blaming it on everything but dismissal feels wrong.

Using Steamspy to just declare how much money he has made and that it is enough to support his family, continue development and hire someone for more art direction when the entire article is about he doesn't have enough money to hire someone is exactly why he wrote this article.

People keep posting in the thread that games with "bad art" still look good with "good art direction" but art direction also costs money, which he still doesn't have.

You say they, but it's only one guy as explained. It's not that he sees art direction as a waste of resources, he sees it as a risk to his future. To expend resources in the art direction he would have to hire more people, and try and ensure the same art style. Which would mean he would need more sales. Plus he would have to upfront these expenses and he might not make it back.

It's an extra risk he doesn't want to his lifestyle that has worked for him for 25 years.