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‑catalog that includes the wildly successful mountain‑bike title Descenders – the very first game released under the No More Robots banner and still a strong seller today. Now the studio is preparing to unveil its inaugural self‑developed title, a cruise‑ship management simulation called Cruise Control.
The road to this release has been anything but straightforward. The seed for the project was planted during a conversation between Rose and Dan Foster, a veteran who joined No More Robots to handle console ports and brought with him a solid background in online multiplayer from his years at Team 17. That chat sparked the idea of building a team‑based online shooter.
After three years of development the prototype attracted the attention of a "big company" – someone Rose says he knows well. The prospect looked promising, but the partner eventually pulled out, claiming the project wasn’t a good fit. The timing coincided with the rapid rise and fall of Concord, a title that was quickly withdrawn from stores, hinting at broader turbulence in the online‑shooter market. "As you can imagine, a tiny studio like ours can’t just launch an online multiplayer shooter on its own," Rose admits.
"I could have tried to find another partner, but I was devastated. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve had in this industry, especially because it came from a partner I deeply respect." With the shooter shelved, Rose faced a decision: what should the five‑person development team work on next? The answer arrived in the form of Cruise Control.
Rose describes the moment as a flash of practicality: "I needed a game we could build quickly, in a genre that sells well on PC." The initial concept was a cruise‑ship management sim in the vein of Two Point Hospital or Two Point Museum, but as development progressed the design morphed into a puzzle‑oriented experience inspired by titles like Mini Motorways. Releasing a game that the studio itself created feels markedly different from publishing someone else’s work. Rose acknowledges a heightened level of anxiety, but also points out that the upside is far greater. "Because we own 100 % of Cruise Control, each sale is worth three or four times what we normally earn from a published title," he explains.
"If the game performs as well as our previous hits, it would be a massive boost for the company." Should Cruise Control prove successful, Rose hints that the previously abandoned shooter could be resurrected – albeit likely in a more modest, perhaps PvE‑focused form. "PvP shooters are a crazy space for a small studio," he says.
"We’re thinking about re‑tooling the project into something more manageable." Reflecting on the broader industry, Rose describes the last few years as a "massacre" for many developers. Yet No More Robots avoided the worst of the COVID‑era boom‑and‑bust cycle because Rose deliberately resisted rapid expansion, a choice he describes as having "scared the shit" out of him.
By staying lean, the company sidestepped the deep cuts that forced many competitors to downsize. Rose also confesses that a large portion of the company’s recent stability stems from what he calls an "accidental genius". At the end of 2021 he distributed all profits among the staff, assuming the same would happen again in 2022. When revenues dipped, the company simply broke even, having kept overhead low.
"We don’t need massive profits; everyone gets paid, we release games, and we have fun. It sounds naïve and stupid, but somehow it works," he says. The publishing model at No More Robots has remained fairly consistent. Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw, and Yes, Your Grace were all produced on five‑figure budgets.
A few titles received larger sums during the pandemic – a period Rose admits he got "caught up" in – and the company felt the sting of over‑spending. Today the firm has reverted to modest five‑figure budgets, with the notable exception of Another Door, a multiplayer roguelike slated for release with a $180,000 budget. Rose recalls the moment he pitched Another Door to his wife: "She just said, ‘Go for it.’" The game is already generating a flood of wishlists, and Rose is confident it could match the success of Descenders. He stresses that organic interest – steady, upward‑trending wishlist numbers on Steam – is the most reliable indicator of a title’s future performance.
Influencer pushes can create spikes, but a flat baseline suggests a lack of genuine player curiosity. Speaking about Descenders, Rose notes that the game has now generated over $35 million in revenue, an impressive figure given its modest budget.
Intriguingly, roughly half of those sales occurred in the twelve‑month window from April to September 2025, a period the team describes as the game simply "popping" for no obvious reason. Rose attributes part of the phenomenon to the game’s accidental similarity to Roblox experiences: "Any kid can fire up Descenders, press a button, and the bike goes ‘brrrr’.
Kids spend hours in the lobby just riding ramps. We never marketed it to that audience; we aimed at hardcore mountain‑bike enthusiasts in their thirties. Yet 99 % of Steam reviews are from kids saying ‘bike goes brrrr.’" The Roblox connection went further.
No More Robots entered talks with Roblox to create a version of Descenders for the platform, undergoing a ten‑step approval process over six months. At the final stage, Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki rejected the proposal, arguing the game was too different from existing content and would confuse users. Rose acknowledges a lingering regret: "We could have funded it ourselves, but we had no experience with Roblox and it felt like a huge gamble." Since then the studio has refocused on PC releases, moving away from console‑centric titles delivered via Game Pass – deals Rose describes as "huge" for the small‑scale games No More Robots publishes. He also comments on the evolving ways to gauge player interest.
While wishlists remain a core metric, industry voices like Fireshine suggest a broader toolbox for measuring demand. Looking ahead, 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 operations, and even successful launches like Thank You for Your Application have cost him sleepless nights. "It wasn’t the game itself that stressed me; it was the sheer volume of launches I’ve overseen," he says.
"I’m moving toward a point where I’m 100 % done, though I don’t know when that will be." In summary, No More Robots’ journey illustrates how a small, disciplined team can survive the volatile indie market by keeping budgets modest, embracing organic growth, and staying adaptable. The upcoming Cruise Control will be the first true test of the studio’s ability to develop and profit from its own IP, while the lingering shooter concept and the promising Another Door hint at a future where the company might finally break out of its self‑imposed constraints and aim for even bigger horizons.