It has been nine years since Mike Rose founded the independent publishing house No More Robots. In that time the company has carved out a respectable niche, largely thanks to a back‑catalogue anchored by the mountain‑bike title Descenders – the first game released under the No More Robots banner and still a strong seller today.
Now the studio is preparing to launch its inaugural self‑developed title, a cruise‑ship management and puzzle hybrid called Cruise Control. The road to that point has been anything but straight.
The seed for the project was a conversation between Rose and Dan Foster, a recent hire tasked with handling console ports but who also brought a wealth of online‑multiplayer experience from his stint at Team 17. Their discussion initially gave birth to an ambitious team‑based shooter. After three years of work, the prototype attracted interest from a "big company" – a partner Rose says he knows very well. That potential deal ultimately fell apart, with the larger studio deciding the project wasn’t a good fit.
The timing coincided with the brief, troubled release of Concord, which was quickly pulled from stores and hinted at broader challenges in the online‑shooter market. "As a tiny outfit we simply couldn’t launch a multiplayer shooter on our own," Rose admits. "I was devastated – 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 had to decide what his five‑person team should tackle next.
He landed on the concept of Cruise Control, a game he believed could be produced quickly and would fit a PC genre that historically performs well. The initial idea resembled a cruise‑ship management sim in the spirit of Two Point Hospital or Two Point Museum, but as development progressed it morphed into a more puzzle‑oriented experience inspired by titles like Mini Motorways. Publishing a game that you have built yourself feels radically different from acting as a middleman for another developer’s work. Rose acknowledges that the anxiety level is higher, but the upside is also dramatically larger.
"Every sale of Cruise Control is three or four times more valuable to us than a typical publishing cut," he explains. "If it reaches the same revenue tier as one of our existing hits, that would be a massive win." Should Cruise Control succeed, No More Robots may revive the abandoned shooter, which already has a demo ready. However, Rose concedes that a pure PvP shooter is unlikely to be viable for a small studio, and he is now considering re‑tooling the concept into a PvE experience instead.
Reflecting on the broader industry, Rose describes recent years as a "massacre" for many developers. No More Robots, however, did not expand dramatically during the COVID‑driven video‑game boom because the prospect of rapid growth frightened him. Consequently, the company avoided the deep layoffs that forced many peers to downsize. Rose openly calls his approach an "accidental stroke of genius." At the end of 2021 he distributed all profits evenly among staff, assuming the same would happen again in 2022.
When revenues fell short, the company simply broke even – a position they were comfortable with because they never relied on massive cash inflows. "We don’t need to make huge profits; everyone gets paid, we release games, and we have fun. It sounds naive and stupid, but somehow it works," he says.
The publishing model itself has remained fairly consistent. Descenders, the label’s breakout hit, was produced on a five‑figure budget, as were most of the studio’s other releases such as Hypnospace Outlaw and Yes, Your Grace.
A handful of projects received larger budgets during the pandemic – a period Rose admits he got "caught up" in – and the company felt the sting of overspending on a couple of those titles. Today, budgets have largely returned to the five‑figure range, with the sole exception of the upcoming multiplayer roguelike Another Door, which carries a $180,000 budget. Rose recalls telling his wife he was convinced about Another Door; she encouraged him to push forward.
The game has already generated a strong organic wishlist flow, and a modest influencer push multiplied that interest four‑fold. "I’ve never seen that level of organic demand in No More Robots’ history. If we execute the launch correctly, the upside could be insane," he says.
Despite these promising signs, Rose confesses that after nine years he feels drained and is looking 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 cost him sleepless nights.
"It wasn’t the game itself that worried me; it was the cumulative pressure of repeated launches," he explains. The studio’s biggest financial triumph remains Descenders, which has now generated over $35 million in revenue. Remarkably, roughly half of those sales occurred in the twelve‑month window from April to September 2025, a surge that Rose attributes to the game’s accidental appeal to a younger audience.
"Descenders feels like a Roblox game – you just hop in, hold the trigger, and the bike goes ‘brrrr’. Kids spend hours in the lobby riding ramps, even though the developers never intended that demographic," he notes.
The game’s unexpected popularity even led to a six‑month negotiation with Roblox about a potential port, only to be shut down at the last minute by Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki, who felt the title didn’t fit the platform’s existing ecosystem. Looking ahead, No More Robots will stay focused on PC releases after a period of console‑centric titles delivered via Game Pass – a partnership Rose describes as "huge" for small‑scale indie games.
While wishlists and pre‑orders have traditionally served as early indicators of a title’s health, Rose now places more weight on organic, steady growth in Steam wishlists rather than spikes tied to marketing pushes. In sum, No More Robots has survived nine years of industry turbulence by keeping budgets modest, embracing occasional serendipity, and staying true to a publishing philosophy that values sustainable, steady growth over reckless expansion. With Cruise Control poised to become their first internally‑developed success, and Another Door generating unprecedented wishlist momentum, the studio stands on the cusp of what could be its most significant breakthrough yet – even as its founder contemplates stepping back for a fresh adventure.