Are all publishers like that, to all devs? You and I can’t say. If all the money goes to Steam, it is a blackhole for the money. It is money that doesn’t go into the development and marketing of a game.
As someone that has assisted indie developers for years, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a publisher that didn’t borderline extort his devs except if the head of the dev studio was playing golf with the CEO of the publishing company.
Are all publishers like that, to all devs? You and I can’t say. If all the money goes to Steam, it is a blackhole for the money. It is money that doesn’t go into the development and marketing of a game.
As someone that has assisted indie developers for years, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a publisher that didn’t borderline extort his devs except if the head of the dev studio was playing golf with the CEO of the publishing company.
Anecdotal evidence and self-contradictory. There are devs who self publish too.