The guy who made Banished contracted his way through the lengthy (something like 4 years) development. Functionally it cost him a lot of money and effort over t

The guy who made Banished contracted his way through the lengthy (something like 4 years) development. Functionally it cost him a lot of money and effort over time, but he did not need the extra overhead of a publisher (unless you consider Steam a sort of pseudo-publisher, which it is). Money is just a thing we use to get other people who don't like us enough to work for us for free to do things for us. There are ways to get resources to make development possible beyond saving up a ton of cash (which carries a lot of risk in and of itself).