1)by highschool you should be familiar with concept of hyperbolization
Sure... /s
3) not sure whether you knew that or not, but digital art is free, actually
The wacom tablet styluses break and/or wear out. Adobe suites do monthly fees now. Even if you STILL manage to have non-subscription access to adobe products, they use to run anywhere from 22.99 to 59.99 dollars per license depending on the type of license/how many license. The replacement styluses themselves, depending on the model, run anywhere from 40 to 120 USD. The upfront cost for digital art is high. So much so that I still keep and maintain my 20+ year old wacom tablet. And yeah, it may, in the long run, be cheaper, but that's ignoring time, effort, software, hardware, drive space, etc. Like, you have to maintain a computer to continue doing art. Making sure the OS is kept up (windows licensing cost), the hardware is maintained (ram, harddrive). So you trade in buying pencils to buying hardware. It's totally not free.
You say it's hyperbole, but like, let's break it down. To do 1 custom character, I'd charge, even while in high school, AT LEAST 20~45 dollars. Anything lower and I'm losing money. But a character isn't a sprite. You'd have to break the character up into it's pieces to animate, do different variants for clothing, different poses, different hair cuts, different facial expressions. So 1 character is now 3~4 poses, 4~6 outfits, all in its individual pieces, all with variant hair cuts, etc. etc. So you're running at least 60~150 per character. Now times that by how many characters in this game (11). That's 660 to 1650 USD. And that's me lowballing the numbers AND ignoring programming, background assets, dialogue writing, etc.
So like, your hyperbole is saying "Man, this sucks so bad a random high schooler could do better for this lower price." But how's that different from a boomer going "Why can't you buy a house? I bought a house back in '50s with the change in my pocket."? Like that boomer is also using hyperbole but, at the same time, is full chest demostrating their complete detachment from current day reality and is hyperbolizing on the wrong point. And that's what I'm speaking to.
Is Oni the best artist? No. Is he the best programmer? Absolutely not. But like, to demean someone's effort like this is just so...boomer. Like I wouldn't go to your job and yell loudly, "Man, that Kotansky. I can replace him with a hobo and a bottle of whiskey." And if you approach me, I wouldn't go "Man, don't you understand hyperbole?" Because the point of you getting mad at that statement wasn't that "It was a joke." It was that it was demeaning, demoralizing and could have affected your life.
And hey, if you really didn't know, no biggie. No one really ever really knows the cost of someone else's job until they've been that in person's shoes. But all I pointed out was, people's time and effort, even artists, which the western world loves to shit on and, at the same time, demand free stuff from, aren't that cheap.