It's hard to say. I'm in some indie circles but I heard some 'open secrets' well after that info would have helped me.
Good ol... uhhh CAVE STORY PUBLISHER THAT WILL NOT BE NAMED tried to recruit me at some point and just gave a lot of red flags (Just like... the fakest feeling person ever) but nothing confirmed how I felt until years later but apparently that was well known for much longer. But I was also got thrown off by McMillen/Isaac Guy liking the head guy.
Dangen has treated me well, but their original CEO was a huge sex pest and that too was apparently an open secret that I wasn't aware of that didn't come out until after I signed.
And even with Dangen, while a lot of the blowup that came after the CEO that wasn't directly related was... way more nuanced in the long run then was let on at the time. People were too mad about the super shitty CEO to care about the details of other issues.
But the Devs that were mad had reason to be mad (even if those reasons blew up and spiraled into two different sad stories unrelated to the company)... but my experience has been good. So it's hard to me to recommend a publisher to anyone cause mileage varies so much. Like my handler was the sweetest guy on earth while the two games that had issues were both assigned the same guy who was leagues out of his depth.
In most publishers, there is definitely a like... hierarchy of preferential treatment and I think it's better to be a lead game for a small publisher then say... a small release for someone like Devolver.
Honestly, if anything, my advice now would be "Unless you're getting lots of money up front, don't get a publisher" but... at the same time getting any notice is so hard right now that what was good advice a few years ago might be bad now. But it's always hard to tell which actual publisher is good because most people seem to assume everyone already knows all the tea already.
Honestly if you're in a situation where you're worried about this, just like... cold email some devs that have worked with a company.
(edit: sorry for a thousand edits I just wanna make sure this is... actually clear, understandable, and useful)
