Non game developers consistently underestimate the cost of making a game but not all games cost $100,000. A better metric would be man hours or man months since not all areas of the world garner US/Europe scale wages. Fruit Ninja certainly cost less than Angry Birds and made a healthy profit (allegedly).

I agree with the article that the money/time gets you to the point where you can polish the game. Angry birds is not the most innovative game but it's level of polish and crucially it's approachability certainly took half of the budget to create.

As an indie it's hard to step back and fund that level of consistency but it needs to be done.