>Also, like book or music publishers, video game publishers may also advance some money to the developers to fund the development of the game, working essentially as venture capital.

Ok. Venture capital usually works by taking a percentage of a funded company's ownership (in the form of stock) in exchange for the cash. In the case of the videogame publisher, what do they get exactly - full ownership of the game's franchise including any control over future sequels, DLC, etc? Or do the developers retain some property rights (like an author would do when selling a book to a publisher)?

Also, I'm not at all downplaying the importance of marketing and funding, but basically this is all that a publisher does? Do they get involved with the actual creation of the game in any way, or with the way that the developer team does stuff?