It has been nine years since Mike Rose founded the indie 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 popular bike‑riding 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 very first self‑developed title, a cruise‑ship management simulator called Cruise Control. The road to that point was anything but straight.
The original spark for the project came from a conversation between Rose and Dan Foster, a veteran of Team 17 who had joined No More Robots to handle console ports and bring multiplayer expertise. Their discussion initially birthed a concept for a team‑based online shooter.
After three years of development the prototype attracted interest from a "big company" – someone Rose says he knows well. Unfortunately that partner pulled out, claiming the project wasn’t the right fit, and the timing coincided with the rapid rise and fall of Concord, a sign that the online‑shooter market was becoming treacherous. "As a tiny studio we simply couldn’t launch an online multiplayer shooter on our own," Rose admits. "I was devastated – it was one of the most unpleasant feelings I’ve ever experienced in this industry, especially because it came from a partner I deeply respect." With the shooter on ice, Rose had to decide what the five‑person development team would tackle next.
The answer was Cruise Control. He wanted a project that could be built quickly, in a genre that performed reliably on PC. The initial idea was a cruise‑ship management game in the vein of Two Point Hospital or Two Point Museum, but as the design evolved it took on more of a puzzle‑oriented feel, drawing inspiration from titles such as Mini Motorways. Publishing a game you’ve created yourself feels fundamentally different from publishing someone else’s work, Rose says.
The anxiety is higher, but the upside is also dramatically larger. "Every sale of Cruise Control is worth three or four times as much to us because we own 100 % of the revenue," he explains. "If it performs as well as one of our previous hits, that would be massive for the company." Should Cruise Control succeed, No More Robots may resurrect the shelved shooter – a demo already exists, though any future version would likely be scaled back or re‑imagined as a PvE experience, since Rose now believes pure PvP shooters are not a viable path for a small studio.
Reflecting on recent years in the industry, Rose describes the landscape as a "massacre". The COVID‑driven boom didn’t translate into rapid expansion for No More Robots; the prospect of scaling up frightened him, which in turn spared the company from the deep layoffs that hit many peers. He calls his approach an "accidental genius". At the end of 2021 he split all profits among the staff, assuming the same would happen in 2022.
When revenues fell short, the company simply broke even, having avoided the need for large cash reserves. "We don’t need to make loads of money, because who does? Everyone’s getting paid, we’re putting out games, and we’re having fun.
I know it sounds naïve and stupid, but somehow it works," Rose says. The publishing model has remained fairly consistent. Descenders, a five‑figure budget megahit, set the tone for most of the label’s releases, including Hypnospace Outlaw and Yes, Your Grace. A few titles received larger budgets during the pandemic, a period Rose admits he got a bit caught up in.
The company has since returned to five‑figure budgets, with the notable exception of Another Door, a multiplayer roguelike slated for $180,000. Rose recalls telling his wife he was certain about Another Door; she encouraged him to go for it.
The game has generated a strong buzz, and Rose feels confident it could become another Descenders‑level success. He attributes this optimism to organic wishlist growth on Steam – thousands of new wishlists appear each day without any marketing push, and influencer spikes multiply that number fourfold. Such organic interest, he argues, is the best predictor of a title’s future performance.
No More Robots’ biggest triumph remains Descenders, which has now generated over $35 million in revenue on a modest budget – a remarkable return. Intriguingly, half of those sales occurred in the most recent year, with a sudden surge between April and September 2025 that Rose can’t fully explain.
He suspects part of the appeal lies in the game’s accidental similarity to Roblox experiences: simple controls, endless riding, and a lobby that kids can inhabit for hours. Although the developers originally targeted hardcore mountain‑bike enthusiasts in their thirties, the majority of Steam reviews come from younger players who describe the game as "bike goes brrrr".
Because of this unexpected demographic, No More Robots entered talks with Roblox to create a version of Descenders for that platform. After a six‑month, ten‑step approval process, Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki ultimately rejected the proposal, claiming it was too different from existing content and would confuse users. Rose acknowledges that attempting a self‑funded Roblox port would have been a huge gamble, given the studio’s lack of experience with the platform, and he now semi‑regrets not taking the risk. The company has refocused on PC releases after a period of console‑centric titles delivered through Game Pass, a channel Rose describes as "huge" for the modest‑scale games No More Robots publishes.
While wishlists and pre‑orders have traditionally served as early indicators of success, Rose emphasizes that genuine, steady organic interest is far more valuable than short‑term spikes driven by influencer campaigns. 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 recent successes like Thank You for Your Application have brought sleepless nights and stress. "I’m moving towards 100 % done," he says, leaving the timeline open-ended but signaling that a new chapter – for himself and possibly for No More Robots – is on the horizon.