Personally I didn’t use publisher contracts the fines were too risky. I just went with trying to research as much as I can building a great engine and doing a classic game based on an existing one for example. One of my best sellers is, a game I based on skyrim called Obisan (their are several in this series) they are RPG/Adventure games and give me loads of income, I have a similar adventure game that made me over 20m (somehow), Just experiment with the game combinations, see what sells best. and maybe make squeals to some of your first best sellers. By releasing squeals of games that sell well, I made 200m.
Edit: another tip I just thought of, Try not to buy too many licences. I stuck to PC and gamling for ages then went to mBox, then mBox next. liences are expensive. how would you like it if Valve for example kept hopping between platforms?