It has been nine years since Mike Rose founded the indie publishing house No More Robots. Over that period the company has carved out a respectable niche, largely thanks to a back‑catalog that includes the mountain‑bike sensation Descenders – the first title to bear the No More Robots label and still a strong seller today. Now the studio is preparing to launch its very first self‑developed game, a cruise‑ship management simulation called Cruise Control.
The road to that release was anything but straight‑line. The seed for the project was a conversation between Rose and Dan Foster, a recent hire who arrived to handle console ports but also brought a background in online multiplayer from his stint at Team 17. Their discussion sparked the idea of a team‑based shooter, a project that consumed three years of development and eventually attracted the interest of a "big company" – a partner Rose says he knows "very well". The partnership, however, fell apart when the larger firm decided the shooter wasn’t the right fit.
That setback coincided with the brief, troubled launch of Concord, which was quickly pulled from stores and hinted at deeper troubles in the online‑shooter market. "As you can imagine, a tiny studio like ours can’t simply roll out a live‑service multiplayer shooter on its 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 put on ice, Rose faced a critical decision: what should his five‑person team work on next? The answer arrived in the form of Cruise Control. He describes the moment as "a thing we could make quickly… and a genre on PC that we know does well." Initially envisioned as a cruise‑ship management experience in the spirit of Two Point Hospital or Two Point Museum, the concept gradually morphed into a puzzle‑oriented title reminiscent of Mini Motorways.
Releasing a game that the studio itself created feels dramatically different from publishing someone else’s work. The anxiety is higher, but so is the upside.
"I’m treating Cruise Control as a title that could earn roughly three times what a typical published game does for us, because we own 100 % of the revenue," Rose explains. "Usually we take a modest slice of a partner’s sales. Every copy of Cruise Control sold is worth three or four times as much to us. If it reaches the performance of one of our previous hits, that would be massive." Should Cruise Control succeed, Rose says the shelved shooter might be revived – albeit likely in a more modest, perhaps PvE‑focused incarnation.
"PvP shooters aren’t a realistic path for a small studio. It would be insane to try to compete there. I’m now thinking about re‑tooling the work into a cooperative experience instead," he notes.
Reflecting on recent years in the gaming sector, Rose describes the landscape as a "massacre". Yet No More Robots avoided the dramatic expansion many peers pursued during the COVID‑driven boom, a decision he now credits with sparing the company from painful layoffs.
"I was scared stiff of scaling up," he says, "so we stayed lean and didn’t have to make the deep cuts other studios were forced to make." Rose also confesses that a large portion of the studio’s recent financial stability stems from an "accidental" act of generosity. At the end of 2021 he divided all profits evenly among staff, assuming the same would happen the following year. When it didn’t, the company simply broke even, having kept its headcount low.
"We don’t need massive profits – everyone’s paid, we’re releasing games, we’re having fun. It sounds naive and stupid, but somehow it works," he laughs. The publishing model itself has stayed fairly consistent. Descenders was built on a five‑figure budget, as were most of the label’s other releases like Hypnospace Outlaw and Yes, Your Grace.
A handful of titles received larger budgets during the pandemic, a period Rose admits he got caught up in, and he acknowledges that No More Robots "got bitten a couple of times" by those higher‑cost experiments. Today the firm is back to five‑figure budgets, with the notable exception of Another Door – an upcoming multiplayer roguelike slated at $180,000. Rose recounts a conversation with his wife when they were finalising the budget for Another Door.
"She just said ‘go for it.’ We announced it and the response has been incredible. Of course we still need to launch, but my gut feeling is that it could be another Descenders‑level hit," he says.
He stresses that low budgets are a conscious choice because the indie market is notoriously unpredictable; you never know which title will explode. His strategy is to assume every game will perform adequately and to build the business around that baseline.
"If we’re the flavour of the month, great. If we’re just steady, that’s enough to survive," he explains. He cites Thank You for Your Application – a quirky document‑checking game from a Chinese student team – as an example of a title that exceeded expectations without any guarantee of success.
"I signed it because I liked the genre, not because I knew it would pop. When it did, we made sure the maths still worked for the developers. That’s the kind of resilience you need in this business." Descenders remains the studio’s crown jewel, having generated over $35 million in revenue on a modest budget.
Remarkably, about half of those sales occurred in the last year, with a sudden surge between April and September 2025 that Rose can’t fully explain. He attributes part of the game’s longevity to its accidental resemblance to a Roblox experience – a simple, instantly accessible bike‑riding loop that keeps younger players glued to the lobby for hours. "We never aimed at kids; we wanted hardcore mountain‑bike fans.
Yet 99 % of Steam reviews are from kids saying ‘bike goes brrrr.’" That unexpected demographic caught Roblox’s attention, leading to a six‑month negotiation about a possible port. After a ten‑step approval process, Roblox’s CEO Dave Baszucki ultimately rejected the idea, saying it would confuse their user base. Rose admits a hint of regret, noting that funding the port independently would have been a huge gamble given their lack of Roblox experience.
Since then, No More Robots has refocused on PC releases, moving away from console‑first titles delivered through Game Pass – a channel Rose describes as "huge" for the scale of games the label publishes. He also emphasizes the importance of organic interest, especially Steam wishlists, as a more reliable health indicator than forced marketing spikes.
"A steady upward wishlist curve is better than a flat line with occasional influencer‑driven spikes," he says. Another Door, with its torrent of daily wishlists, exemplifies that ideal. "Even without any push, we’re getting thousands of wishlists every day. When we add a small influencer boost, the numbers quadruple.
That tells me we’re on the right track – something rare in my nine‑year career," Rose enthuses. He believes the title could match Descenders’ success if the launch is handled correctly. Despite these promising signs, Rose admits he feels drained after nearly a decade of constant launches and sleepless nights. "I don’t want to keep doing this forever.
I’m craving a new challenge and have a few ideas already," he confides. Because the company remains small, Rose still handles many operational tasks himself, which adds to the stress. "It’s not the games themselves – I knew Thank You for Your Application would perform well – it’s the sheer volume of launches that wears you down," he says.
Looking ahead, Rose says he is moving toward a point where he can step back completely. "I’m heading toward 100 % done, but I don’t know when that will be," he concludes, hinting that the next chapter for both himself and No More Robots may be just around the corner.