Comment by SXX

Publishers that want to work with indie studios are already accepting 100s of pitches and choose 0.1% they like. If a big publisher will buy a lot of small indie studios you'll soon see titles in a press like "{PUBLISHERNAME} force developers to live on ramen and work 12 / 6".

Simply because working on very tight budget likely 12/6 is how indie games are made. And to be honest in modern economy having any budget at all is kind a success already. So I'd belive most of small games are built on enthusiasm and founders own money.

Vast majority of "indie" games budgets are in range of $100,000 and $300,000 total. Over that amount there is gap where no one invest except few rich, successful and picky publishers. Getting more funding for a small-scale project is extremely hard so if your game needs more then it's must be AA project for at least $2,000,000+ budget. But AA+ means $40+ price tag, completely different production quality and large team so very few kind of games fit the math.

PS: I co-founder of a small gamedev studio and I know quite a few other people in this industry.

PSS: I'm happy to be wrong though. So if you know how to get game funded I have 4 cool playable prototypes to build into a game, team of 10+ devs and we track record for 3 released titles including one for consoles.