So pretty much they were clueless and now they're on track ?
About indie: if you want to be cost effective you can create a AAA looking game (specially those "open world but mostly trees") for 500 bucks (and even less), paying an artist for that (or having one in your staff) will give you nothing (how much is it, a week of work ?). You can even do a AAA looking game with the free learning assets from unreal.
It's not that AAA guys are trying to scam people, it's just that they don't work that way, they do everything from a scratch, they have a lot of people (and the more nodes, the slower you work).
EX:
That pack costs 85 bucks (I have it for unity), it's amazing, highly optimized, and it's very modular, couple it with the free unreal assets, some free substances from substance share, and you pretty much have a AAA looking scene for 100 bucks. AAA teams can't do that (and you don't expect them to be buying assets that anybody can have).