> Even if the mega-corp paying the dev team's salaries pinky promise to be hands off on creative decisions, the dev's themselves are going to be extreemly unlik

> Even if the mega-corp paying the dev team's salaries pinky promise to be hands off on creative decisions, the dev's themselves are going to be extreemly unlikely to do something that will piss off or threaten the mega-corp who pays their bills. That's why it's important that "indie" really means "independent" There are some publishers that I think have actually generally upheld that social contract to not interfere. There aren't a lot of them but they exist. One that comes to mind is Annapurna. They pick up in development indie games, more or less write a blank check, and offer their advertising/name recognition. I'd still consider them indie personally because the games are all fundamentally indie developers that got lucky and got bankrolled but otherwise don't get interference.