No More Robots’ nine-year journey to releasing its first self-developed IP – “This sounds so naive and stupid, but somehow it’s working”

It’s been nine years since Mike Rose set up the indie publisher No More Robots.

The firm has seen solid success in that time, in part bolstered by a back catalogue that includes the bike-riding megatitle Descenders, which was the first game released under the No More Robots name and which is still a huge seller.

Now, No More Robots is set to release its first self-developed game, the cruise liner simulator Cruise Control, after a major pivot along the way. The title’s genesis was a discussion between Rose and Dan Foster, who joined No More Robots to deliver console ports, but brought online multiplayer experience from his time at Team 17. The conversation spawned development of a team-based online shooter, which ultimately took three years and attracted interest from a “big company”, says Rose. “Someone who you would know very well.”

The future seemed bright – but ultimately the other party pulled out, saying it wasn’t the right fit. This was also around the time that Concord came out and was swiftly pulled from sale, potentially signalling problems in the online shooter space.

“As you’d imagine, there’s no way that we as a tiny company could just launch an online multiplayer shooter by ourselves,” Rose says. “Maybe I could just find someone else. But also I was just crushed. It was one of the most unpleasant things I’ve felt in this industry. And it was from a partner who I massively respect.”

Why liner

No More Robots put the shooter project on ice, and Rose had to work out what the five-person development team would work on next. He hit on the idea of Cruise Control. Or, to be specific, the name Cruise Control, followed by a game idea that he knew was “a thing we could make quickly… and it’s a genre on PC that we know does well.”

It started as a cruise ship management game in the vein of games like Two Point Hospital or Two Point Museum, but has since evolved into more of a puzzle title inspired by the likes of Mini Motorways.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Rose says that releasing a game his own company has made is a very different experience from publishing someone else’s work. Despite the higher level of anxiety, the No More Robots boss says the potential upside of Cruise Control doing well is much higher.

“The way that I’m treating Cruise Control is this game is going to do roughly three times as well for us as a normal game, because we’re making 100% of it,” he says. “Normally we’re taking a small cut of a game we’re working with. Every sale of Cruise Control is worth three or four times as much to us. If we manage to make it do as well as one of our other games, that would be massive for us.”

If Cruise Control does well, Rose says that No More Robots might reheat the shooter that it was working on before. The company has a demo ready to go, but the version that makes it into the wild might be different and more scaled-back.

“I think that PvP shooters are not a viable thing for us,” Rose says. “As a small company, to enter that space would be insane. I’ve started to think about repurposing it into a PvE thing.”

Bloodbath

Looking back at the last few years in the games industry, Rose describes the scene as a “massacre”. But No More Robots didn’t grow significantly during the COVID video game boom – the reason being that expansion “scared the shit” out of Rose – and thus hasn’t had to make the deep cuts that other companies have had to make since.

Rose fully admits that this was an “accidental” bit of “genius”.

“At the end of 2021, I just split all the profits between all the staff,” he says. “I gave our staff lots of money and rolled into 2022 thinking that that would just happen again. When it didn’t, we were fine as we hadn’t expanded. We just broke even again. We don’t need to make loads of money, because who needs it? Everyone’s getting paid. We’re putting out a bunch of games; we’re having fun. I know this sounds so naive and stupid, but somehow it’s working.”

For the most part, No More Robots’ publishing model hasn’t changed much either. The label’s megahit Descenders had a five-figure budget. The same is true for the majority of the company’s games, including Hypnospace Outlaw and Yes, Your Grace. But a few games received larger budgets around COVID (“I did get caught up a little bit in what was happening,” Rose admits), and No More Robots was “bit a couple of times for that”.

Now, the company is firmly back to five-figure budgets, with the only exception being Another Door, an upcoming multiplayer roguelike with a budget of $180,000.

“I remember speaking to my wife, just saying that I was so sure about this one,” Rose says. “She just said go for it. We just announced it, and it is popping. Obviously we still need to launch it. I’m hoping my intuition was correct on that one. But outside of that, our budgets have been low. “They’ve had around five figures for most games recently.”

One reason Rose has been hesitant to increase budgets is due to the unpredictable nature of the indie games industry, where it’s difficult to foresee which games will become popular.

“I have to assume that every game will do decently,” he explains. “I have to assume that we won’t be the trend of the moment; but if we are, that’s fantastic. We recently had Thank You for Your Application and became the talk of the town for a week. It was incredible. I didn’t anticipate that. I signed that game because I enjoy the document-checking genre.”

“Thank You for Your Application was developed by a Chinese student team, which I found intriguing. I didn’t sign it expecting it to become a hit, but I believed it had the potential to. Even if it didn’t, I needed to ensure the financials made sense and that they would still be okay. By structuring launches around ‘If this launch is decent, we’ll be fine, and if it’s exceptional, we’ll be very good’, that’s how you survive in this industry.”

Descenders’ success

The most significant success No More Robots has experienced so far is with their first game, 2017’s Descenders. The game has now generated over $35 million in revenue, which Rose considers impressive given the limited budget.

Surprisingly, half of Descenders’ sales occurred within the last year; between April and September 2025, the game experienced a sudden surge in popularity, although the reason for this was unclear.

Rose believes that part of Descenders’ success is that it unintentionally appeals to a Roblox-like audience.

“We didn’t plan it, but what I mean is that any child can start playing Descenders and the game simply says: ‘Hey, ride a bike’, that’s all,” he explains. “You just press the trigger, and the bike moves forward, and then you steer left and right. We have kids who spend hours and days in the lobby just riding on the small ramps.”

“99% of the reviews on Steam are kids saying ‘bike goes brrrr'”

“Rage Squid didn’t design the game for that audience. When we marketed the game, we aimed it at mountain bikers and hardcore gamers in their 30s. People in their 30s find the game somewhat interesting. But 99% of the Steam reviews are kids saying ‘bike goes brrrr’.”

Descenders aligned so well with the Roblox demographic that No More Robots considered creating and funding a version of the game for the platform. Despite initial discussions with Roblox, the project was ultimately rejected by the CEO.

“Throughout the process, Roblox staff assured us that this was a perfect fit because it was unlike anything on their platform,” Rose recalls. “But then the CEO stated that it was too different from existing content and would confuse users.”

After Roblox declined the port, No More Robots considered self-funding the project but deemed it too risky.

“We would have been taking a big gamble. We lacked experience in the Roblox market,” Rose explains. “It could have been a disaster. In hindsight, I somewhat regret not pursuing it because Roblox is massive.”

The company has since focused on PC releases, returning to the platform after a period of console titles primarily distributed through Game Pass, which Rose describes as pivotal for the smaller-scale games No More Robots publishes.

Anticipating Success

Traditionally, wishlists and pre-orders have been used as indicators of a game’s potential success, although Fireshine has recently highlighted various ways to gauge player interest.

For Rose, “the best sign is when a game naturally attracts interest, and we don’t have to push it.” He suggests monitoring the Steam wishlist graph, where a steady increase is preferable to sporadic spikes around marketing efforts.

“Spikes usually occur when there’s an influencer push or similar tactics,” Rose explains. “That’s beneficial, but when there’s no external promotion, and interest remains low, that’s not a good sign.”

Wishlists are a key reason why Rose is optimistic about Another Door, believing it has the potential to match the success of Descenders.

“Organically, this game is generating thousands of wishlists daily without any intervention from us,” Rose notes.

“And when we do promote it, such as through influencer partnerships, the wishlist numbers quadruple compared to the usual influx.”