Well, you should then read the entire article again, since you stopped reading, and you stopped reading in a part you read wrong, since nowhere in the article he says Ultima was more expensive to make than Wing Commander, he only mentions "cheaper" Wing Commander "spin offs", and didn't said cheaper in relation to what... it could be cheaper than the original wing commander, that notoriously is credited as being the first AAA game ever (Wing Commander was the first game that splurged millions to make, and it not even broke even, ever. Only reason it is considered a success was that the franchise as whole ended being very profitable and eventually paid off the costs of the first game).

That was Wing Commander 3, which hadn't been made yet. Wing Commander 2 was mostly just using the Wing Commander 1 game engine, which is probably why Snell liked it so much. Savage Empire and Martian Dreams were the "Worlds of Ultima" series of CRPGs, and were based on the Ultima VI engine - very little new programming involved - just new content. That was probably pretty cheap too.

These games all predate wing commander III (which was the first with FMV). Wing Commander I and II both had two expansions that sold well, so it was 6 games with one engine, and with the exception of the base WC 2, had little more novel animation than e.g. Ultima VII.