It has been nine years since Mike Rose founded the indie publishing house No More Robots, and the journey has been anything but ordinary. In that time the company has carved out a respectable niche, largely thanks to a back‑catalog that includes the wildly successful bike‑racing title Descenders. Descenders was the very first game to bear the No More Robots label and continues to generate strong sales, cementing the studio’s reputation as a capable publisher of high‑octane indie experiences.
Now the firm is preparing to launch its inaugural self‑developed title, a cruise‑ship management simulator called Cruise Control. The project arrived after a dramatic change of direction. The seed for Cruise Control was planted during a conversation between Rose and Dan Foster, a developer who joined No More Robots to handle console ports and brought valuable online‑multiplayer expertise from his tenure at Team 17. Their discussion initially sparked the idea of a team‑based online shooter.
The shooter entered development, consumed three years of work, and even attracted interest from a "big company"—someone Rose says he knows well. Ultimately that partner pulled out, claiming the project wasn’t a good fit, and the timing coincided with the brief, troubled release of Concord, a cautionary tale for the online‑shooter market. "As a tiny studio we simply couldn’t launch an online multiplayer shooter on our own," Rose admits.
"I felt crushed. It was one of the most unpleasant moments of my career, especially because it came from a partner I deeply respect." With the shooter shelved, Rose faced a decision: what should the five‑person team work on next? The answer was Cruise Control. Rose recalls the moment he thought, "We need a game we can build quickly, in a genre that sells well on PC." The initial concept was a cruise‑ship management game in the spirit of Two Point Hospital or Two Point Museum, but as development progressed the design shifted toward a puzzle‑oriented experience reminiscent of Mini Motorways.
Releasing a game that the studio itself created feels fundamentally different from publishing someone else’s work. While the anxiety is higher, Rose believes the upside is far greater. "Because we own 100 % of Cruise Control, each sale is worth three or four times what a typical publishing cut would be," he explains.
"If the game performs even half as well as our biggest hits, it will be a massive win for us." Should Cruise Control succeed, Rose says No More Robots may revive the abandoned shooter, which already has a demo ready. However, the final version would likely be scaled back or reimagined as a PvE experience, since Rose now believes "PvP shooters aren’t viable for a small studio".
Reflecting on the broader industry, Rose describes recent years as a "massacre" for many developers. The COVID‑19 boom did not translate into rapid expansion for No More Robots; in fact, the prospect of scaling up terrified Rose, allowing the company to avoid the massive layoffs that plagued larger studios. He calls the resulting stability "accidental genius".
At the end of 2021 Rose made a bold move: he split the company’s profits evenly among all staff, rewarding everyone generously and entering 2022 with the expectation that the same would happen again. When the profits didn’t repeat, the company simply broke even, and Rose was content. "We don’t need to make huge sums of money; everyone gets paid, we keep releasing games, and we’re having fun.
I know it sounds naive and stupid, but somehow it works," he says. The publishing model at No More Robots has remained largely consistent. Their flagship, Descenders, was produced on a five‑figure budget, as were most of their other titles such as Hypnospace Outlaw and Yes, Your Grace. A few projects received larger budgets during the pandemic, a period Rose admits he got caught up in, and the company felt the sting of those extra expenditures.
Today the studio has returned to modest five‑figure budgets, with the notable exception of Another Door, a multiplayer roguelike slated for release with a $180,000 budget. Rose recounts a conversation with his wife when deciding to fund Another Door: "I was convinced it would work; she just told me to go for it.
We announced it, and the response has been amazing so far. I’m hopeful my gut feeling is right." Keeping budgets low is a deliberate strategy, given the unpredictable nature of indie success.
Rose explains, "I assume every game will do okay. If we happen to become the flavor of the month, that’s fantastic, but we can survive on modest returns as well." One of the most striking examples of unexpected success was Descenders. Since its 2017 launch, the game has generated over $35 million in revenue—a remarkable figure for a modestly funded title. Intriguingly, half of those sales occurred in a single six‑month window between April and September 2025, with no clear catalyst.
Rose attributes part of the phenomenon to the game’s accidental similarity to Roblox experiences: simple controls, endless riding, and a lobby that kids can occupy for hours. "We never aimed to make a Roblox‑style game," Rose notes. "Our original audience was hardcore mountain‑bike enthusiasts in their thirties, but the majority of Steam reviews now come from kids who just love the ‘bike goes brrrr’ vibe." The Roblox connection even led to a six‑month negotiation with the platform about a potential port. After a ten‑step approval process, Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki ultimately rejected the idea, saying the game was too different from anything on the service and could confuse users.
Rose admits he might have funded the port himself, but the risk of venturing into an unfamiliar platform felt too great, and he now somewhat regrets passing up the opportunity. No More Robots has refocused on PC releases after a period of console‑centric titles delivered through Game Pass, a deal Rose describes as "huge" for the scale of games the studio publishes. While wishlists and pre‑orders have traditionally been viewed as success indicators, Rose now places more weight on organic interest. He monitors Steam wishlist graphs, preferring a steady upward trend over spikes tied to influencer pushes.
"If a game is gaining wishlists without any marketing, that’s a strong signal," he says. That organic momentum is precisely why Rose feels confident about Another Door. The title is accumulating thousands of wishlists daily without any promotional effort, and each influencer push multiplies that number fourfold.
"It’s rare for us to see that level of natural interest," he says. "If we execute the launch correctly, the results could be insane." Despite the excitement, Rose admits that after nine years he feels drained and is eager for a new challenge. He still handles many of the label’s day‑to‑day tasks, and even successful launches like Thank You for Your Application have kept him up at night. "I’ve done so many launches now; I’m moving toward a point where I’m 100 % done," he concludes, leaving the future of No More Robots open to new possibilities.