Considering their experiences of managing to have kept their independence, I think (hope) Larian are wiser than giving up their IP/royalty to publishers (They probably share a black list of publishers with other indie companies). The below are bit old entries about publisher-developer relationship.
Bad Banks
Why so many developers close their doors

As consumers, what we can do would be, to support indie companies through crowd-funding sites and distribution sites with, at least, decent policies.