It's saying they don't have the money to pay anyone. Not that they have money to pay for game development but not other things. The bad sales of this game are stated to be the reason they can't afford to pay anyone.
If they didn't expect sales to be good, they sure wouldn't have expected to be able to pay salaries for a dozen SF-based devs with the proceeds. And if they didn't expect that, they couldn't blame the bad sales for not being able to pay staff.
As a naive reader (and now re-reader), I don't understand what this is other than more layers of hypothetical in service of inventing thoughts other people had. Maybe you have more lore than the article, ex. dozen SF-based devs? Happy to hear more.
If they didn't expect sales to be good, they sure wouldn't have expected to be able to pay salaries for a dozen SF-based devs with the proceeds. And if they didn't expect that, they couldn't blame the bad sales for not being able to pay staff.