In my opinion, live is generally softer which some people that can't beat online games will be able to show a profit live. But yeah, I agree that there sample size is probably reallllllly tiny. Don't believe people when they say they win, when 90% lose.
1,200 games isn't much really and unless your buddy has been grinding 1 live mtt a day for the past x number of years then its safe to assume his live sample is much much smaller. In live mtt's its hard to accumulate a big sample size for obvious reasons but they're a lot softer than online so roi's will be much higher and that more than makes up for the lack of volume