It has been 9 years since Mike Rose arrange the indie writer No More Robots.
The agency has seen strong success in that point, partly bolstered by a again catalogue that features the bike-riding megatitle Descenders, which was the first sport launched below the No More Robots title and which continues to be an enormous vendor.
Now, No More Robots is about to launch its first self-developed sport, the cruise liner simulator Cruise Management, after a serious pivot alongside the best way. The title’s genesis was a dialogue between Rose and Dan Foster, who joined No More Robots to ship console ports, but introduced on-line multiplayer expertise from his time at Staff 17. The dialog spawned growth of a team-based on-line shooter, which finally took three years and attracted curiosity from a “large firm”, says Rose. “Somebody who you’d know very nicely.”
The long run appeared vibrant – but finally the opposite social gathering pulled out, saying it wasn’t the suitable match. This was additionally across the time that Harmony got here out and was swiftly pulled from sale, doubtlessly signalling issues within the on-line shooter house.
“As you’d think about, there isn’t any method that we as a tiny firm might simply launch a web-based multiplayer shooter by ourselves,” Rose says. “Perhaps I might simply discover another person. But additionally I used to be simply crushed. It was one of the vital disagreeable issues I’ve felt on this trade. And it was from a companion who I massively respect.”
Why liner
No More Robots put the shooter undertaking on ice, and Rose had to work out what the five-person growth workforce would work on subsequent. He hit on the concept of Cruise Management. Or, to be particular, the title Cruise Management, adopted by a sport concept that he knew was “a factor we might make shortly… and it’s a style on PC that we all know does nicely.”
It began as a cruise ship administration sport within the vein of video games like Two Level Hospital or Two Level Museum, but has since developed into extra of a puzzle title impressed by the likes of Mini Motorways.
Maybe unsurprisingly, Rose says that releasing a sport his personal firm has made is a really totally different expertise from publishing another person’s work. Regardless of the upper stage of tension, the No More Robots boss says the potential upside of Cruise Management doing nicely is way greater.
“The way in which that I am treating Cruise Management is that this sport goes to do roughly thrice as nicely for us as a traditional sport, as a result of we’re making 100% of it,” he says. “Usually we’re taking a small lower of a sport we’re working with. Each sale of Cruise Management is price three or 4 instances as a lot to us. If we handle to make it do in addition to one in every of our different video games, that will be huge for us.”
If Cruise Management does nicely, Rose says that No More Robots may reheat the shooter that it was engaged on earlier than. The corporate has a demo prepared to go, but the model that makes it into the wild is likely to be totally different and extra scaled-back.
“I feel that PvP shooters will not be a viable factor for us,” Rose says. “As a small firm, to enter that house could be insane. I’ve began to take into consideration repurposing it right into a PvE factor.”
Massacre
Trying again at the previous few years within the video games trade, Rose describes the scene as a “bloodbath”. But No More Robots did not develop considerably through the COVID online game growth – the reason is that growth “scared the shit” out of Rose – and thus hasn’t had to make the deep cuts that different firms have had to make since.
Rose totally admits that this was an “unintentional” little bit of “genius”.
“On the finish of 2021, I simply break up all of the income between all of the workers,” he says. “I gave our workers a lot of cash and rolled into 2022 pondering that that will simply occur once more. When it did not, we had been positive as we hadn’t expanded. We simply broke even once more. We do not want to make a great deal of cash, as a result of who wants it? Everybody’s getting paid. We’re placing out a bunch of video games; we’re having enjoyable. I do know this sounds so naive and silly, but somehow it’s working.”
For probably the most half, No More Robots’ publishing mannequin hasn’t modified a lot both. The label’s megahit Descenders had a five-figure finances. The identical is true for almost all of the corporate’s video games, together with Hypnospace Outlaw and Sure, Your Grace. But a couple of video games acquired bigger budgets round COVID (“I did get caught up slightly bit in what was taking place,” Rose admits), and No More Robots was “bit a few instances for that”.
Now, the corporate is firmly again to five-figure budgets, with the one exception being Another Door, an upcoming multiplayer roguelike with a finances of $180,000.
“I keep in mind talking to my spouse, simply saying that I used to be so certain about this one,” Rose says. “She simply stated go for it. We simply introduced it, and it’s popping. Clearly we nonetheless want to launch it. I am hoping my instinct was right on that one. But exterior of that, our budgets have been low. They have been like 5 figures for almost all of video games lately.”
One purpose Rose has been eager to keep on with decrease budgets is the unpredictable nature of the indie video games enterprise, the place it’s nearly unimaginable to predict which video games will blow up.
“I’ve to assume that each sport will simply do positive,” he explains. “I’ve to assume that we’re not going to be the flavour of the month; but if we’re, that is unbelievable. We simply had Thank You for Your Application and had been the flavour of the week. That was superb. I did not know that was going to occur. I signed that sport as a result of I really like this type of document-checking style.
“Thank You for Your Software was a Chinese language pupil workforce, which I believed sounded enjoyable. I did not signal it figuring out that it could pop off, but I believed it had the substances that meant it could. If it hadn’t, I wanted to ensure the maths labored and that they had been nonetheless going to be positive. Should you construct launches round ‘If this launch is okay, we’ll be good, and if it’s superb, we’ll be excellent’, that is the way you survive this factor.”
Descenders’ ascent
By far the most important success No More Robots has seen to date is the first sport it launched – 2017’s Descenders. That title has now surpassed $35 million in income. As Rose says, “on a small finances, it’s not unhealthy in any respect”.
But what is maybe extra stunning is that half of Descenders’ gross sales have been made within the final yr; between April and September 2025, the sport simply “popped”, Rose says, though there was no apparent purpose why.
Nonetheless, Rose thinks that a part of the rationale for Descenders’ success is that it’s “unintentionally a Roblox sport”.
“We did not imply to do it, but what I imply by that’s that any child proper now can boot Descenders up, and the sport actually simply goes: ‘Hey, journey a motorcycle’, and that is all it does,” he says. “You actually maintain the set off, and the bike goes ahead, and you then go left, and you go proper, and it goes left and proper. We’ve got children who actually sit within the foyer for hours and days, not doing something different than simply driving on the little ramps which are within the foyer.
“99% of the critiques on Steam are children saying ‘bike goes brrrr'”
“[Developer] Rage Squid didn’t make that sport for these folks. After we had been making an attempt to promote the sport, we needed mountain bikers and hardcore folks to play, folks of their 30s. Individuals of their 30s do not thoughts the sport. They’re type of into it. But 99% of the critiques on Steam are children saying ‘bike goes brrrr’.”
The truth is, Descenders was such a ‘Roblox sport’ that No More Robots was in discussions with the corporate about making and funding a model of the sport for its personal platform. Rose says this course of went on for about six months and concerned a ten-step approval course of. On the remaining stage, Rose says that CEO Dave Baszucki shot the undertaking down.
“All over the entire course of, folks at Roblox had been telling us that this was good as a result of there’s nothing prefer it so far,” he says. “This was good. After which the CEO of Roblox instructed us that that is too totally different from something that is already on right here and would confuse their customers.”
When Roblox declined to pursue the port, Rose says that No More Robots might have funded the undertaking itself, but it was “an excessive amount of of a big gamble”.
“We might simply be placing the sport out. We had no expertise in any way of doing Roblox,” Rose says. “It might have been a catastrophe. I do truly semi-regret not doing it as a result of Roblox is so enormous.”
The agency has stayed dedicated on PC releases, refocusing on the platform after a interval of console-facing titles mainly delivered by Recreation Cross, the offers for which Rose describes “enormous” for the smaller-scale of video games that No More Robots publishes.
Studying the runes
Traditionally, wishlists and pre-orders have been seen as key indicators of a sport’s future success, though Fireshine lately pointed to a variety of various methods for gauging participant curiosity.
For Rose, “the perfect signal is when a sport is organically getting curiosity, and we’re not having to power it.” A method to spot this, he says, is to take a look at the graph for Steam wishlists; a graph that’s going steadily up is preferable to one that’s flat, with spikes occurring round advertising beats.
“These will occur once they’re doing an influencer push or one thing,” Rose says. “That is nice, but once they’re not doing something, nobody cares. I do not imply that in a imply method; I imply that they are simply not getting natural curiosity. It is not a superb signal when, on a traditional day, ten wishlists trickle in, and there’s simply typically not a lot curiosity.”
Wishlists are one purpose why Rose is so assured about One other Door. The No More Robots boss even believes it could possibly be one other Descenders-sized success.
“Organically, this sport, with out us doing something, is simply getting hundreds and hundreds of wishlists day by day,” Rose says.
“After which after I do one thing, like slightly influencer push for it, we get 4 instances as many wishlists as we usually do. That is a superb signal. I do know that looks like a really preemptive factor to say, but even now we’re at the least six months away from launch, and I simply type of know already. It’s extremely uncommon to have that. I’ve by no means had that within the historical past of No More Robots. The sky is the restrict on this if we do that accurately. After we get to launch, this could possibly be insane.”
But as No More Robots approaches what might nicely be its greatest hit to date, Rose says that 9 years in, whereas he enjoys the work, he’s “a drained particular person”.
“I do not need to do it for for much longer,” he admits. “I would like to do one thing new quickly. I feel I desire a new problem, and I’ve acquired some concepts of issues I would like to do.”
“I do not need to do it for for much longer”
A part of that is the truth that No More Robots hasn’t scaled massively; Rose nonetheless handles loads of the label’s operations himself. Even with the discharge of Thank You for Your Software, he says he had “many sleepless nights” and an enormous stage of stress.
“It had nothing to do with the sport; I knew it was going to do nicely,” he says. “It was identical to, I’ve achieved so many launches now.”
“I am shifting in direction of 100% achieved,” he concludes. “I do not know when that is going to be.”