Let's say one publisher takes a game and proceeds to sell it without giving the dev a penny.
They continue to do so for years despite many requests from the dev asking what the heck's goin' on.
Then they say wait a second, the ceiling for royalty payouts is $5,000, despite nothing in the contract saying that. Then they say $1,000. Then they say payments are quarterly. Then you don't hear from them again.
Then let's say they continue screwing indie devs until one website finally writes an article about it and gets a few statements from devs who have been screwed over by this company.
And then let's say that publisher, despite being 100% in the wrong, denies any wrongdoing and is in fact angry at the article and devs for making them "look like the bad guy." Then they pay out what is supposedly owed to one of the devs in the article, without issuing a royalty report or having any proof that was indeed what was owed, and was in fact a lower payment than any of their supposed "ceilings" you had to hit before getting any money.
Then let's say after the money is finally in your bank account,
they actually ask if they could publish your game on Steam, despite email after email declaring your contract with this publisher is terminated due to them not following through multiple points that can be considered grounds for cancellation of said contract.
And then, to top it off, your game is Greenlit on Steam...and you find out
the publisher is trying to beat you to market by releasing your game on Steam before you can, despite telling them they have absolutely no right to do so. They know you'll try to pull it off Steam, but at least they can make a few hundred sales right?
So then you're constantly anxious that your game will be released on Steam, without your consent, making money that you'll never ever see a dime of, in a state that could be nearly broken with zero Steam features, without any way of patching it since you'd have to go through the publisher who has zero contact with you already, with the potential of a ton of customers angry at the developer for making a shoddy product despite the fact that it's not their fault at all.
...so yeah, there are worse.