This is far from the truth, not the 'no license' part but the part about the games worth.
Lets take a real world example, with the same context.
I buy a run-down house 'a fixer upper' for $30k, I spend $20k on renovating it, does this mean my newly renovated house is only worth what I originally bought it for, no of course not.
The fact of the matter is, if the seller has put time, effort, money into developing a game, they have every right to sell it for an amount they feel is reasonable, and you cannot definitively tell them different.