It has been nine years since Mike Rose founded the indie publisher No More Robots, and in that time the studio has carved out a respectable niche in the games market. The company’s early breakout came with Descenders, a downhill‑bike title that was the first game released under the No More Robots banner and remains a strong seller more than half a decade after launch.
Now the studio is poised to launch its very first self‑developed title, a cruise‑ship management and puzzle game called Cruise Control. The road to that launch has been anything but straight‑forward.
The idea originated during a conversation between Rose and Dan Foster, a veteran of Team 17 who had joined No More Robots to handle console ports. Their chat sparked the concept of a team‑based online shooter, a project that consumed three years of development and even attracted the attention of a “big company” – someone Rose says he knows well. That prospective partner eventually pulled out, claiming the shooter wasn’t a good fit.
The timing coincided with the rapid rise and fall of the online‑shooter Concord, a warning sign that the multiplayer‑shooter market was becoming treacherous. Rose admits the loss was a crushing blow: “It was one of the most unpleasant feelings I’ve ever had in this industry, especially because it came from a partner I deeply respect.” With a five‑person team suddenly without a clear direction, Rose had to decide what to build next. The answer was Cruise Control.
Rose recalls that the name itself came first, followed by the notion of a game that could be produced quickly and would sit comfortably in a PC genre that historically sells well. The initial design 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 abstract puzzle experience reminiscent of Mini Motorways.
Publishing a game that you have created yourself feels fundamentally different from publishing someone else’s work, Rose explains. The stakes feel higher, the anxiety greater, 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 says. “If it performs as well as any of our previous hits, that would be massive.” Should Cruise Control succeed, Rose hints that the shelved shooter could be resurrected, albeit likely in a more modest form.
The team already has a demo ready, but Rose now believes a pure PvP shooter is unrealistic for a small studio. “I’m thinking of re‑tooling it into a PvE experience,” he notes. Reflecting on the broader industry, Rose describes the past few years as a “massacre” for many developers.
Yet No More Robots avoided the dramatic expansions that left other studios over‑extended during the pandemic‑driven boom. Rose admits he was terrified of scaling too fast, which inadvertently saved the company from having to make deep cuts later on. In late 2021, Rose made an unconventional decision: he split the year’s profits evenly among all staff. The gesture paid off in morale, and the company entered 2022 expecting a repeat.
When the anticipated windfall didn’t materialise, the studio was still financially stable because it had not expanded its payroll. “We break even, we pay everyone, we keep releasing games and having fun,” Rose says.
“It sounds naïve and stupid, but somehow it works.” The publishing model at No More Robots has remained fairly consistent. Their flagship Descenders was built on a five‑figure budget, as were most of their other titles such as Hypnospace Outlaw and Yes, Your Grace.
A handful of games received larger budgets during the COVID surge, a period Rose acknowledges he got caught up in, and the studio “bit a couple of times for that.” Today the company is back to modest five‑figure budgets, with the notable exception of Another Door, an upcoming multiplayer roguelike funded with $180,000. Rose’s cautious budgeting stems from the unpredictable nature of indie success. “I have to assume every game will just do fine,” he says. “If we happen to be the flavour of the month, that’s fantastic, but we can’t rely on it.” He cites the surprise hit Thank You for Your Application, a document‑checking game from a Chinese student team, as an example of a title that exceeded expectations without any guarantee of success.
Descenders remains the studio’s biggest triumph, having generated over $35 million in revenue on a modest budget. Interestingly, roughly half of those sales occurred in the twelve months between April and September 2025, a surge Rose can’t fully explain.
He attributes part of the game’s enduring appeal to its accidental similarity to a Roblox experience: a simple, instantly accessible bike‑riding loop that keeps younger players glued to the lobby for hours. While the original developers aimed at hardcore mountain‑bike enthusiasts, the majority of Steam reviews now read “bike goes brrrr,” highlighting the game’s unexpected demographic. The Roblox angle even led to formal talks about porting Descenders to the platform. After a six‑month negotiation and a ten‑step approval process, Roblox CEO Dave Baszucki ultimately rejected the proposal, saying the game was too different from anything on Roblox and would confuse users.
Rose concedes that, had No More Robots funded the port themselves, the outcome could have been disastrous – a risk they chose not to take, though he admits a hint of regret given Roblox’s massive audience. Looking ahead, Rose remains confident about Another Door, buoyed by a steady influx of Steam wishlists that climb organically without heavy marketing pushes.
“When we do a small influencer boost, wishlists quadruple,” he observes. “That organic growth is rare for us, and it suggests the game could become a major hit.” Despite the optimism, Rose admits fatigue after nine years of relentless launches and sleepless nights.
“I’m a drained person,” he confesses. “I don’t want to keep doing this forever.
I’m looking for a new challenge and have a few ideas already.” The studio’s lean structure means Rose still handles many operational tasks himself, and even successful releases like Thank You for Your Application have taken a personal toll. In his own words, Rose is moving toward a point where he can say he’s “100 % done” with the current phase of No More Robots, though he isn’t sure when that moment will arrive. The journey from a modest indie publisher to a studio releasing its first self‑developed IP has been marked by pivots, budget discipline, and a willingness to embrace naïve optimism – a formula that, against the odds, appears to be working.