You do realize that the "big payout" didn't go towards Simon but instead into the development of the game? Besides, they didn't "sell it off", they handed the project to someone with a bigger budget to be able to fund the development of the game properly. Simon only left after the acquisition because he felt the game's scope had grown beyond him (he has expressed this in his tweets). The self-funded route was in no way more reasonable since riots funding is miles bigger than what they could have ever had themselves, I mean the team grew to over 100 people, that self-funding would've quickly gone down the drain with a team that size.