No More Robots pivots to self-development, projects 3-4x margin per sale
Summary
No More Robots is releasing Cruise Control, its first internally developed title in nine years of publishing.
Founder Mike Rose projects self-made titles earn three to four times more per sale than published games.
The pivot follows a shelved three-year multiplayer shooter after a major partner withdrew.
"This game is going to do roughly three times as well for us as a normal game, because we're making 100% of it"
01
Full ownership triples per-unit margin
Rose treats Cruise Control as a test of owned-IP economics.
"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"
Matching a typical catalogue title's performance would be "massive" for the company, Rose says.
The same five-person team that built the shelved shooter delivered Cruise Control.
02
A shelved shooter and a downturn survived by staying small
The shooter was built over three years with Dan Foster, a former Team17 multiplayer designer.
A major partner backed the project three years, then withdrew as Sony pulled Concord from sale.
No More Robots avoided post-COVID layoffs by refusing to scale staff during the 2021 boom.
Catalogue budgets stay five-figure, with the $180,000 roguelike Another Door the sole exception.
03
The 3-4x claim is a projection, not a track record
Cruise Control is the first self-developed release after nine years of publishing only third parties.
The prior owned bet, the multiplayer shooter, collapsed despite three years and major-partner interest.
Rose's confidence signal - a steadily climbing Steam wishlist graph - backs Another Door, not Cruise Control.
04
A stated path back to the shelved shooter
Rose says a strong Cruise Control launch would justify reviving the shooter as PvE.
"I think that PvP shooters are not a viable thing for us. As a small company, to enter that space would be insane. I've started to think about repurposing it into a PvE thing"
What this means
For Publishers & Developers: Break-even-sized budgets and no boom-era scaling offer a replicable downturn survival model.
For Investors & VC: The 3-4x margin math is unproven; the only prior owned bet failed after three years.
Events
Companies
Games
Locations
United Kingdom
COMPILED BY GAMES ATLAS EDITORIAL
RELATED ARTICLES
EXPLORE MORE
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share your thoughts!