I think in some ways a publisher can be good. Someone there to say hey we need a product we can sell and this is when we need it. But I also think there gets to a size of development team where it's hard to make are because you just feel like a corporate drone and not a member of a team making something fun.

But the AAA games industry is full of overbearing publishers and absolutely gigantic teams with giant projects and giant budgets that cannot fail.

Smaller devs also can't fail, not much anyway. But success was easier to reach because they didn't have to make as much money. Now success means make all the money and that's just fantasy. I guess you don't make it rich if you make it easy to win.