In a lot of cases the relationship is not that. Instead, the publisher takes a healthy cut of the revenue for doing all the things that isn’t directly developing the game: marketing, testing, release, sales, etc.

Oftentimes the publisher can act as an advisor or matchmaker for finding the right people to solve problems. But this is meaningfully different from taking control of the game’s development.

We have multiple well known, well respected indie PUBLISHER'S now, like tinyBUILD and MicroProse (new) and even Humble Games, at least until Amazon milks the final few drops of value out of the Humble brand.