Mongoose Publishing is just finishing its 23rd year in business and we are still here, still producing games, and still creating new universes for players to explore! Our silver anniversary approaches…
I am Matthew Sprange, owner of Mongoose Publishing, and the State of the Mongoose is our yearly address to the gaming community, covering how we have been getting on over the past 12 months and then looking forward to our plans for the following year.
This year we will be talking about what has been happening behind the scenes at Mongoose as a business, as well as specifics on Traveller, Paranoia, Shield Maidens and a lot more!
Grab yourself a coffee, get comfy, and let us take you through everything that has been happening as 2024 has been a busy year for Mongoose!
Traveller, Twilight & 2300AD
Well, the big news is that we formally purchased Traveller, Twilight 2000 and 2300AD in their entirety. In terms of administration, this fairly knocked us for six for much of the year, as there is an awful lot of history and content (nearly 50 years worth!) to digest. Added to this was that while the purchase of Traveller had been planned for coming up to two years (and discussed for much longer than that) while everything was being counted, checked and doublechecked, and the provenance of all materials properly traced and documented, the purchase of Twilight 2000 and 2300AD was a little more… rapid.
Basically, we received a phone call one day that more or less said ‘hey, you want these two or what?’. We said yes, they said yes, and the deal was done. Both were already on the cards, but we had been figuring that they would roll around some time a little further into the future.
So. That was a lot.
Integrating all of this took (is taking) a fair amount of work. Marc Miller made heroic efforts over the years to bring a lot of Traveller material produced outside the likes of GDW back into the fold, and we have been able to continue that process, properly bringing the immense library of Traveller materials under a single umbrella. On top of that, there were existing and potential licensees of various Traveller-based projects to talk to, getting the older books onto our website (still have T20, Twilight 2000 and 2300AD to go, a project for 2025) while revising their existing entries on DriveThruRPG, altering trademark registrations, and just taking into account all the previously published titles we were not wholly familiar with. There are an awful lot of titles…
The current edition of Traveller is, as they say, ‘well-developed’ in our hands and has been for a good few years, so overall this transfer of ownership will mean little to players in the near future as it is very much a case of business-as-usual, and this applies to Twilight 2000 and 2300AD as well. We will continue to work on new 2300AD material and Free League’s Twilight 2000 will run on for the foreseeable future.
The Business Stuff
Mongoose remains on the path to employee ownership and in the future really will be owned by gamers, run by gamers, for gamers. There are a great many things to fit into place before that can happen though, and we are steadily making progress for the people here to completely run the company with no input necessary from me.
This took a little wobble in 2024, as we had been aiming for more time when the staff are completely running the company for growing periods and, while we managed this a little, the acquisition of Traveller and the other properties put a great administrative burden on Mongoose that restricted our efforts. We will be redoubling this in 2025!
The other effect of the Traveller, Twilight 2000 and 2300AD purchases was a reduction in the bonuses that employees here earn, and we pride ourselves on the fact that most of the money you spend on our games goes directly to the creators. However, it is worth pointing out that it was the employees here who collectively made the decision to buy these properties, knowing full well it would financially affect them in the short term – however, they will be the people who end up owning these lines, so it was seen as very much an investment for the future.
With these purchases complete (and with greater revenue now possible not only with licence royalties no longer going out, but licence payments now coming in), we are looking forward to making 2025 a more prosperous year for the staff at Mongoose. There is just one more investment hurdle to overcome – the opportunity has arisen for Mongoose to obtain the building it currently works out of and, again, the staff have made the decision to go for it. The advantages here, aside from no longer having to pay rent, are that with a) full ownership of our main lines, b) the building we work from and c) an extensive back catalogue that continues to sell through digital means and often in print, means that Mongoose has become an exceptionally stable company. Not going to tempt fate by using a phrase like ‘bullet-proof’, but we have spent several years now ensuring the longevity of Mongoose as pretty much the absolute priority.
With all this in place, we feel ready to take on whatever the future may hold. We will continue to look for investments in the company beyond the games themselves (solar panels for the building have been raised as a possibility), but the headline priority now will switch to the staff themselves – getting them in their own homes, setting them up for their own futures, and generally making their lives as good as possible.
This year, we had another marketing person join us and then leave… and it is clear that, as a company, we really do not understand marketing. For more than two decades, our approach has basically been to pop onto social media occasionally and say ‘err, we have this new book out… umm, do you want it, it’s quite good, yeah?’
That is about our level of sophistication when it comes to marketing. It is very clear to us that there is a massive opportunity here to get the good word out about our games, but we have a serious skill shortage in this area. So, we continue the search for a Grand Architect of Marketing who can take all our creative ideas and push them forward to the next level.
If you have the marketing chops (or know someone who does), we can offer almost complete autonomy, actual ownership in the products you drive forward (you will literally end up owning Traveller), and a salary that is, as far as we are aware, better than anything else you will find in the tabletop gaming industry within the UK.
So, you know… might be worth getting in contact…
A Word From a Mongoose
I have talked before about what it is like to work at Mongoose – I thought this year it might be good to listen to one of the people who work here. This is what Abby, one of our graphic designers, had to say.
“Mongoose definitely isn’t your typical 9-5 office job. I think the biggest change is that you feel part of everything that’s going on and know the company will work for you, not just vice versa.
“We get to choose our own projects, including making pitches for other IPs, talking to potential licensees, and occasionally saying no if someone has a ‘whizz-a-whizz’ idea we don’t think is worth pursuing. We set our own deadlines for whatever we’re working on and can organise a day out to a museum, wildlife park, or escape room (or whatever else) if we want. We don’t use corpo-speak but if we did it would be ‘work as hard as you want, play as hard as you want’, but we all know enough about the business finances and production schedule to balance that sensibly and get what needs to be finished done.
“We all have a wider range of responsibilities than our job titles, as we all contribute to the day-to-day running of the office and business alongside working on our projects. That usually means responding to customer service emails and packing orders, but can include pretty much anything else that comes up – in the last month, that has meant unpacking several restocks, getting an electrician in to quote for new lights, dealing with Thames Water as they dug holes outside the office, and hassling/persuading the local council to replace a bin. Whilst it can be frustrating to put a future release on hold for a while, it all needs doing and splitting the work between everyone is better than leaving it all to one person.
“It’s not just the small everyday decisions we get to be a part of though; we all have access to the company bank accounts and understand the monthly finances. That means we can make smaller purchases without sending twenty emails and an invoice, but also decide together on big spending decisions like whether to buy the building or a new license, and seeing the next month’s salaries already in the bank makes job security a more tangible thing. There’s a lot of support for personal finances and life goals as well, with an accountant working to sort out tax issues for a few people, driving lessons, and a mortgage advisor ready to help people get into their first house.
“Some companies use casual clothing, employee discounts, cozy nap spaces, well-stocked snack cupboards and cooked lunches to cover up toxic work cultures. Mongoose gives you those things and a real say in how the company works for you and everyone around you.”
Artificial Intelligence
The short answer is… we don’t do it.
However, this subject deserves a longer answer than that.
When all the new generative AI systems started dropping, we had a play with them, and at first glance they were sufficient for staff here to ask whether they still had jobs. On closer inspection of the results… well, it is just a bit rubbish, isn’t it?
The problem is that, fundamentally, AI art is not art. It is not an exploration of humanity in any real measure. And this does shine through in the results.
Turns out, to do art, you need an artist.
Now, we do get the attraction, and a powerful one it is too. If you are an at-home gamesmaster, you get to create all these visuals more or less on the fly for your players – and that is excellent at the tabletop. However, it is also gaining penetration on the starting rung of the publishing ladder and this is a bit… less good. I have this idea (and it is just an idea) that it is being driven primarily by writers. And, speaking as a writer, we tend to be a tiny bit weak when it comes to the visual arts. So, we write up a new robot, give some directions to an AI generator, and look upon our new creation – and think, ‘hey, that looks good, it is really shiny and realistic looking!’
Meanwhile, an actual artist is sobbing at the result which has little technical direction and absolutely no soul.
The way, I think, to look at it is this: As a writer/designer, you are not using AI to create your text – because you know exactly how bad it is at that.
The same applies to visual art. We writers tend not to be too good at seeing this, and so can get a bit dippy when we see our words transformed into pictures. I am absolutely not immune to this myself.
At the end of the day, if you have an idea for a publication that you want to get out into the wider world, AI art might well be your best tool. If, however, you want to create a solid foundation that will turn you into a more mainstream RPG publisher in the future… hire a real artist. They will appreciate it and you are going to end up with a better title.
So, is AI the ultimate evil? I don’t think it has to be. I would love an AI that handled all our accounts and finances. That took complete control of our administration. An AI that we could trust to review and create contracts.
A reasonably priced robot that flawlessly packed up all of our mail orders would be lovely.
I mean, this was the promise, right? AI taking over all the boring and repetitive roles so we could focus on all the fun/satisfying stuff. Can we have that, please?
(Caveat: I personally find doing mail orders actually quite satisfying…).
With the way Mongoose is set up these days, we actually act more as a design studio than a traditional publisher and everyone here is a form of creative – we employ no admin people at all, and so all current admin tasks are split between staff. The idea of being able to focus purely on the creative is… attractive.
Business Summary
To summarise, 2024 has been an expensive year for us, but we managed to do it all without borrowing a penny and without breaking every piggy bank. The current financial position is not awful by any measure… I might use the term ‘reasonable’, but it would be nice if we could have a little break before diving into another major investment.
We have still been able to do some ‘outside-of-core-business’ things for the staff, such as office trips and scratching the heads of fluffy Lemurs at a wildlife park, and we are looking forward to doing more next year.
2024 and the Mongoose
Well, that was quite the tumultuous year and we have been kept very busy, but for all the right reasons.
In terms of projects and releases, we managed to get some heavy-hitters out of the door in the form of books like This is Free Trader Beowulf (the complete history of Traveller up to our purchase of it), Bounty Hunter, the Starship Operator’s Manual, and we have been continuing releases of the epic Fifth Frontier War storyline. We have topped off the year with the immensely popular Traders and Gunboats and, all going well, you may just see Clans of the Aslan appearing before we break up for the end of the year.
And, of course, there is the usual free Christmas present for Travellers – expect to see that in early December!
After a break of something like a year and a half, we launched a new Kickstarter project with a third set of Journals of the Travellers’ Aid Society, the books of which will incidentally be going off to print very soon. There may be two Kickstarter projects coming next year, but that will be absolutely dependant on the developmental progress of those books and we certainly have no reliance on Kickstarter to keep the lights on – those projects get selected either because we see the chance to properly expand an existing set of titles or because Kickstarter itself can be an effective tool for marketing.
2024 was not just about Traveller, of course, and Paranoia saw the release of two brand new adventures. Citizen in Name Only is a deep satire of… certain modern events… that sees the players take control of not one but two Troubleshooter teams (on opposing sides, naturally, so their successes only end up hurting themselves – yup, this is how we do satire) in a fight for the future of an entire sector, and perhaps all of Alpha Complex.
Mandatory Duty, on the other hand, casts a critical eye on corporate culture, with the Troubleshooters being assigned to run a brand new investment firm and sell its benefits (?) to high-ranking citizens. The clone count will be high on this one.
Last, but never least, Shield Maidens gained two new hardbacks this year. Dataforge takes a look at some of the intelligent adversaries your warriors may encounter as they travel the Nine Realms, while Tales of Yggdrasil collates several adventures to kick off an entire campaign – starting on the oppressive streets of Midgard and ending up encountering a god in Niflheimr.
So, that was 2024. What can you expect from Mongoose next year?
Traveller in 2025
For obvious reasons, there will be a heavy Traveller theme to 2025!
Singularity: This was originally planned for the very tail end of 2024 (well, about now, actually, as you are reading this!) but this new ‘epic scale’ campaign has ballooned in scope – though you will not have to wait too long now. This will be a books-in-a-slipcase campaign, and the first two books already have their manuscripts in. They have been edited, layout has begun, and we are just waiting for the final writing to be completed. Your Travellers will start in the Imperial Core on an easy but lucrative assignment serving the nobility. However, they will soon discover that very little is as it seems (perhaps literally everything?), and the campaign quickly explodes into a mighty epic that covers huge swathes of Charted Space and brings the Travellers face-to-face with the nature of their own existence and reality itself. Penned by fan-favourite Chris Griffen, this will be one to keep an eye on, likely mid- to late spring.
Vehicle Handbook Update 2025: You asked for it, and it is coming! No mere tweaking, Geir has completely dis-assembled the vehicle construction rules and rebuilt them, piece by piece. Expect a construction system similar to the current rules, but with far more options and balance. From bicycles to mighty land-battleships, from crop dusters to flying aircraft carriers, this re-written and massively expanded vehicle book will carry your Travellers across entire worlds in style, comfort and safety.
The Fifth Frontier War: We will be continuing to alternate between sourcebook and adventures, putting your Travellers right in the front seat of the Fifth Frontier War and in a position to actually alter the map of the Spinward Marches. Early in 2025 you will see Riverland, which for the first time uses Zhodani Travellers, on a mission to help the oppressed populations of Imperial worlds rise up against corrupt rulers. Quickly following this will be Ground Forces of the Fifth Frontier War, doing for ground pounders on both sides what The Imperial Navy did for the fleets of the Imperium. And there will be plenty more titles to follow as we enter another year of the Fifth Frontier War story.
Ine Givar: Vile terrorists or freedom fighters looking to escape the oppression of the nobility? Or both? This will be the complete sourcebook allowing you to decide, giving you everything needed to use the Ine Givar as foils in your campaign, antagonists in the Fifth Frontier War… or as a group of Travellers looking to topple the existing order of the Third Imperium.
Comics: If you have been following Traveller’s comic series, there is more coming in 2025 for you – Far Trader and Riftbreaker will continue, and added to these lines will be Far Trader Insurrection. On top of that, you will also start to see the compiled full graphic novels!
Classic Traveller
As will be obvious to anyone who has seen the current Traveller rules set, at Mongoose we have a proper passion for the first edition ‘Classic’ Traveller. With Mongoose taking ownership of the entire Traveller catalogue, the possibility arose of us doing some work with this piece of gaming history – so how could we turn that down?
Our first step, announced just a week ago, was to add Classic Traveller to the TAS community programme on Drivethru – Classic TAS! This basically allows you to publish your own Classic Traveller titles, using all of GDW’s Classic Traveller as a foundation. We have created a set of free templates to use, including in Microsoft Word format, so it has never been easier to publish your own Traveller material. We look forward to seeing what you all come up with!
However, we could just not leave well enough alone, and some idle chatter led to a brand new project for Classic Traveller. Book 9: Pirate is the first official core release for Classic Traveller in, well, decades, and it will be appearing in both digital and print formats (identical to the original Little Black Books!) in 2025.
Will we do anything else for Classic Traveller? This will depend very much on the reception to Book 9: Pirate, though it has to be said that interest on social media for it has already far exceeded what we had expected, so… maybe? We have already had some (very) vague discussions for Supplement 14…
Traveller’s 50th Anniversary
We are a little ways out on this at the moment, but 2027 will see the 50th Anniversary for Traveller, and we cannot just let this pass without marking the special occasion. We have been collating ideas of what to do in terms of both events and some unique special releases, and these have inevitably sprawled into something gigantic and unrealistic. We will therefore be refining our ideas throughout 2025 and work will properly commence in 2026.
Whether you are a short-term visitor to Charted Space or a long-time resident, we hope to bring you something truly exciting to mark the longevity of one of the best RPGs ever released.
New Traveller Universes
The acquisition of Traveller, plus some unavoidable stalls on writing, has delayed a few projects, but we are very keen to expand Traveller to other universes and other stories, and work has been rolling steadily forward.
Pioneer: This is one that many of you are aware of, and we have been slowly whittling away at this new game. We are calling it ‘Traveller-adjacent’, in that it will not require the current Core Rulebook, but the mechanics will be instantly recognisable to any Traveller player. This has allowed us to bend and twist those mechanics to properly fit the setting – a very near future game where players (the Pioneers) are launched on the first manned missions across the solar system. The initial campaign book will see your players being the first people to step onto Mars, but there will be plenty of activity in the rulebook alone to attain many ‘firsts’ in Earth orbit and on the moon; orbital rescues, building the first moon colony, off-Earth mining, and much more.
The Big Two: In terms of development, Pioneer is well in hand and will soon be passed to our artists and layout. We have therefore been able to begin development of not one but two new ‘Traveller-adjacent’ games, one science-fiction and the other… not. They are not yet ready for public viewing, being in that critical genesis phase, but you may just see one of them towards the end of 2025. The other is much larger in scope, and it will certainly need all of 2025 for development… and maybe 2026 as well. We shall see. More news in the State of the Mongoose 2025!
2300AD
It is no secret that we have faced some issues with writing in 2300AD, unavoidable as they were. However, things are beginning to get back on track and we are looking to bring you at least two new titles in 2025.
Fans of 2300AD will be very familiar with Invasion, as it has appeared in a State of the Mongoose quite a few times now! That said, it looks like we have good news on the horizon and the manuscript should be landing really quite soon. As soon as it arrives we will be fast-tracking it into the production schedule, giving it priority as soon as we can. Invasion will contain around twenty related adventures, a short atlas of the French Arm, all the Kaefer ships, new human, Pentapod and Ylii ships, a couple of large, detailed space stations, campaign rules, and a Traveller-focussed way to run the final battle. Then, a bunch of adventure seeds for after that final battle, and updated information for the atlas to reflect changes that happened during the war.
We also have an extended adventure set on Nous Voila, a borderline garden world on the French Arm – the manuscript is in, it is here, it exists! We are just in the process of deciding whether to commission another adventure or two also set on this world, to give your players a complete environment to explore, but you can expect to see this out in 2025 as well.
Is that all for 2300AD? Not a bit of it!
We want to see how the Classic TAS programme on Drivethru is received, but if it goes half as well as we think it might, we will open up TAS to 2300AD as well – 2300AD TAS! Using the current rules set, this will crack open the 2300AD universe to outside development, allowing you to create your own adventures, ships, characters, and colonies, and then release them all to a (very) hungry audience.
We apologise for the delays that have struck at 2300AD, but hope we can correct this in 2025. Get your Stutterwarp drives warmed up, you are going to need them!
Shield Maidens
There is a lot of passion for the Shield Maidens RPG here at Mongoose – after all, who can turn away from a female-led warrior order in a Viking/Cyberpunk-themed world where players take on both fascist empires and the gods themselves across the Nine Realms?
2025 will see the start of Shield Maidens fiction appearing, beginning with a couple of short stories. The purpose of this fiction is for us to explore the Nine Realms, and to showcase people, places and organisations to you, so you can gain a greater understanding of this universe and how everything works. Hopefully, they will also give you some ideas for encounters and adventures too!
Finally, work is due to start on Vanaheimr, a brand new hardback exploring (one of) the worlds of the gods. Your Shield Maidens will be able to cross the Rainbow Road to Vanaheimr, encounter the inhabitants of this wondrous realm, navigate the lands of Freya herself, and try to avoid being drawn into the machinations of the divine.
Paranoia
With everything going on in the world at the moment, there may never have been a richer time for Paranoia to draw upon. You can be certain Alpha Complex will remain an active (and deadly) place to visit throughout 2025.
Next year, you can expect to see…
Water, Water, Everywhere: One tricky thing about living in an underground dystopia is what to do with indoor waste heat. PowerServ did a bad thing and needs to hide it as temps skyrocket. TechServ hates PowerServ, so they are trying to publicise it instead. And right in between the two? Yep, our brave Troubleshooters who keep getting mini-missions to say heat is rising and then that it is not. This mission satirises climate change and how some pretend it does not exist as the Troubleshooters struggle to do two equally opposite things.
Infiltraitors: Are you a human? Are you sure? Then prove it! In the real world, you often have to prove you’re a human (and not a bot) online. In Alpha Complex, someone made a nifty gadget that uploads a software mod into your Cerebral Coretech. Does this make you a bot or even a rogue AI? More importantly, how can you tell? In a satire of how we struggle to identify bots and AI on the Internet, the Troubleshooters will taste test new algae and infiltrate a group known as Meatbots while their players try to figure out if their character is human or... something else.
Interwebs Famous: Everyone knows you should trust videos more than books or text. Words are slippery but videos are reality! In this mission, a new video posting quota goes about as expected and everyone tries to prank others to become Interwebs Famous. Our intrepid Troubleshooters work with celebrities, post their own videos, and generally satirise influencers and the role of social media in our lives. Surely citizens will see these funny posts and start to like Troubleshooters more, right?
Behind the Curtain: Life in Alpha Complex might be short and brutish, but it is also messy. There are so many organisations in play that it is hard to remember which you have to bribe and which to hide from. Now, GMs can complicate Troubleshooter lives with fresh info on all service groups and all secret societies! You can find new favours, NPCs, schemes, rivalries, sample departments/cells, and a whole lot more.
Legend
We have not spoken about Legend in a long while, so I think it is time we delve a little into what is going to be happening.
At the moment, Legend is fully Open Content, using the OGL, and has proven popular in this guise. However, with the, umm… situation revolving around the OGL, we have been asked to move the game to a new open licence – and ORC seems to be the popular choice.
So, why have we not yet moved? We are not opposed to the idea in any sense, it is just that we have not worked with ORC and are completely unfamiliar with all of its foibles, whatever they may be. Yes, we can spend time investigating it… but we have been a tad busy of late (see all previous text!). Ultimately, this is indeed on the cards (and if not ORC, something similar), but we need to engage with all the ins and outs, and there is just very little available brain bandwidth at the moment. As things stand, Legend continues to run on OGL and, for our part at least, this will not change.
As for Mongoose’s own work on Legend, for quite some time we have been looking at doing a new edition of the game. However, while we will be bringing a new fantasy RPG to light in the future, it will not be driven by Legend. Because of that, we will be sunsetting our own publishing plans for it and effectively turning it over to the community.
May your creations be wondrous and fantastic!
Video Games
Evil Twin Artworks continues to partner with us for video game adaptions of our tabletop titles, and 2025 will see some interesting things emerging.
The follow up to Victory At Sea Pacific, Victory At Sea Atlantic, is out now in Early Access on multiple platforms. Victory at Sea Atlantic is a thrilling naval combat game set in the Atlantic theatre of World War II. Take command of your fleet and navigate the treacherous waters of the Atlantic as you engage in epic battles with enemy warships, subs, and aircraft.
They are now hard at work on their next project, set during the Fifth Frontier War. Traveller: Vanguard pits the Zhodani against Imperial forces in a desperate struggle across the stars as they launch direct assaults on one another’s warships. While it is early days yet, here is an early sneak peek!
Roll20 and VTTs
Paranoia appeared on Roll20 this year (after a long, long time in prep), and now features all supplements and missions released thus far. We will be continuing this support into 2025.
As for other VTTs, work is underway on many of them, to one degree or another, and Traveller titles will continue to appear on Fantasy Grounds for the foreseeable future.
On the wider issue of digital tools to aid play, we have (at long last) started to build an outline of requirements for Traveller. At the moment it very much looks like a Christmas tree, with every idea being hung off it, and it desperately needs trimming down and turning into a more realistic project. This is very unlikely to happen in 2025, but I am hoping development will at least start.
And into the Future
The past few years have focussed primarily on securing a future for Mongoose and the people who work here, strengthening the foundations. This work will continue, but there is light at the end of this particular tunnel. The aim for 2025, overall, is to polish off this foundational reinforcement and have a quieter year building resources and taking care of staff members. No doubt some time will also be spent considering where to go for our Next Big Project.
A year ago in the last State of the Mongoose, we listed a series of primary goals for 2024. How did we do?
We did okay on those, and will be continuing all things unfinished into next year. However, we need new goals for 2025. Given the big moves in 2024, this will be a shorter list than before, mainly revolving around security and stability.
To summarise our entire approach to business these days, Mongoose really only has two primary aims: Support our customers and support our staff. It is my belief that, given a business model that works and emplaced security for the company, if these two goals are followed, everything else has a habit of falling into place.
If you have reached the end of this State of the Mongoose, thank you for sticking through these 6,000-odd words, and thank you for continuing to support us across 2024. We very much hope to see you again in 2025 as we continue to explore new universes, both scientific and fantastic.
All that is left is for everyone here at Mongoose to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a prosperous and fun-filled New Year.
Stay safe and keep gaming!
Matthew Sprange
Managing Director
Mongoose Publishing
I am Matthew Sprange, owner of Mongoose Publishing, and the State of the Mongoose is our yearly address to the gaming community, covering how we have been getting on over the past 12 months and then looking forward to our plans for the following year.
This year we will be talking about what has been happening behind the scenes at Mongoose as a business, as well as specifics on Traveller, Paranoia, Shield Maidens and a lot more!
Grab yourself a coffee, get comfy, and let us take you through everything that has been happening as 2024 has been a busy year for Mongoose!
Traveller, Twilight & 2300AD
Well, the big news is that we formally purchased Traveller, Twilight 2000 and 2300AD in their entirety. In terms of administration, this fairly knocked us for six for much of the year, as there is an awful lot of history and content (nearly 50 years worth!) to digest. Added to this was that while the purchase of Traveller had been planned for coming up to two years (and discussed for much longer than that) while everything was being counted, checked and doublechecked, and the provenance of all materials properly traced and documented, the purchase of Twilight 2000 and 2300AD was a little more… rapid.
Basically, we received a phone call one day that more or less said ‘hey, you want these two or what?’. We said yes, they said yes, and the deal was done. Both were already on the cards, but we had been figuring that they would roll around some time a little further into the future.
So. That was a lot.
Integrating all of this took (is taking) a fair amount of work. Marc Miller made heroic efforts over the years to bring a lot of Traveller material produced outside the likes of GDW back into the fold, and we have been able to continue that process, properly bringing the immense library of Traveller materials under a single umbrella. On top of that, there were existing and potential licensees of various Traveller-based projects to talk to, getting the older books onto our website (still have T20, Twilight 2000 and 2300AD to go, a project for 2025) while revising their existing entries on DriveThruRPG, altering trademark registrations, and just taking into account all the previously published titles we were not wholly familiar with. There are an awful lot of titles…
The current edition of Traveller is, as they say, ‘well-developed’ in our hands and has been for a good few years, so overall this transfer of ownership will mean little to players in the near future as it is very much a case of business-as-usual, and this applies to Twilight 2000 and 2300AD as well. We will continue to work on new 2300AD material and Free League’s Twilight 2000 will run on for the foreseeable future.
The Business Stuff
Mongoose remains on the path to employee ownership and in the future really will be owned by gamers, run by gamers, for gamers. There are a great many things to fit into place before that can happen though, and we are steadily making progress for the people here to completely run the company with no input necessary from me.
This took a little wobble in 2024, as we had been aiming for more time when the staff are completely running the company for growing periods and, while we managed this a little, the acquisition of Traveller and the other properties put a great administrative burden on Mongoose that restricted our efforts. We will be redoubling this in 2025!
The other effect of the Traveller, Twilight 2000 and 2300AD purchases was a reduction in the bonuses that employees here earn, and we pride ourselves on the fact that most of the money you spend on our games goes directly to the creators. However, it is worth pointing out that it was the employees here who collectively made the decision to buy these properties, knowing full well it would financially affect them in the short term – however, they will be the people who end up owning these lines, so it was seen as very much an investment for the future.
With these purchases complete (and with greater revenue now possible not only with licence royalties no longer going out, but licence payments now coming in), we are looking forward to making 2025 a more prosperous year for the staff at Mongoose. There is just one more investment hurdle to overcome – the opportunity has arisen for Mongoose to obtain the building it currently works out of and, again, the staff have made the decision to go for it. The advantages here, aside from no longer having to pay rent, are that with a) full ownership of our main lines, b) the building we work from and c) an extensive back catalogue that continues to sell through digital means and often in print, means that Mongoose has become an exceptionally stable company. Not going to tempt fate by using a phrase like ‘bullet-proof’, but we have spent several years now ensuring the longevity of Mongoose as pretty much the absolute priority.
With all this in place, we feel ready to take on whatever the future may hold. We will continue to look for investments in the company beyond the games themselves (solar panels for the building have been raised as a possibility), but the headline priority now will switch to the staff themselves – getting them in their own homes, setting them up for their own futures, and generally making their lives as good as possible.
This year, we had another marketing person join us and then leave… and it is clear that, as a company, we really do not understand marketing. For more than two decades, our approach has basically been to pop onto social media occasionally and say ‘err, we have this new book out… umm, do you want it, it’s quite good, yeah?’
That is about our level of sophistication when it comes to marketing. It is very clear to us that there is a massive opportunity here to get the good word out about our games, but we have a serious skill shortage in this area. So, we continue the search for a Grand Architect of Marketing who can take all our creative ideas and push them forward to the next level.
If you have the marketing chops (or know someone who does), we can offer almost complete autonomy, actual ownership in the products you drive forward (you will literally end up owning Traveller), and a salary that is, as far as we are aware, better than anything else you will find in the tabletop gaming industry within the UK.
So, you know… might be worth getting in contact…
A Word From a Mongoose
I have talked before about what it is like to work at Mongoose – I thought this year it might be good to listen to one of the people who work here. This is what Abby, one of our graphic designers, had to say.
“Mongoose definitely isn’t your typical 9-5 office job. I think the biggest change is that you feel part of everything that’s going on and know the company will work for you, not just vice versa.
“We get to choose our own projects, including making pitches for other IPs, talking to potential licensees, and occasionally saying no if someone has a ‘whizz-a-whizz’ idea we don’t think is worth pursuing. We set our own deadlines for whatever we’re working on and can organise a day out to a museum, wildlife park, or escape room (or whatever else) if we want. We don’t use corpo-speak but if we did it would be ‘work as hard as you want, play as hard as you want’, but we all know enough about the business finances and production schedule to balance that sensibly and get what needs to be finished done.
“We all have a wider range of responsibilities than our job titles, as we all contribute to the day-to-day running of the office and business alongside working on our projects. That usually means responding to customer service emails and packing orders, but can include pretty much anything else that comes up – in the last month, that has meant unpacking several restocks, getting an electrician in to quote for new lights, dealing with Thames Water as they dug holes outside the office, and hassling/persuading the local council to replace a bin. Whilst it can be frustrating to put a future release on hold for a while, it all needs doing and splitting the work between everyone is better than leaving it all to one person.
“It’s not just the small everyday decisions we get to be a part of though; we all have access to the company bank accounts and understand the monthly finances. That means we can make smaller purchases without sending twenty emails and an invoice, but also decide together on big spending decisions like whether to buy the building or a new license, and seeing the next month’s salaries already in the bank makes job security a more tangible thing. There’s a lot of support for personal finances and life goals as well, with an accountant working to sort out tax issues for a few people, driving lessons, and a mortgage advisor ready to help people get into their first house.
“Some companies use casual clothing, employee discounts, cozy nap spaces, well-stocked snack cupboards and cooked lunches to cover up toxic work cultures. Mongoose gives you those things and a real say in how the company works for you and everyone around you.”
Artificial Intelligence
The short answer is… we don’t do it.
However, this subject deserves a longer answer than that.
When all the new generative AI systems started dropping, we had a play with them, and at first glance they were sufficient for staff here to ask whether they still had jobs. On closer inspection of the results… well, it is just a bit rubbish, isn’t it?
The problem is that, fundamentally, AI art is not art. It is not an exploration of humanity in any real measure. And this does shine through in the results.
Turns out, to do art, you need an artist.
Now, we do get the attraction, and a powerful one it is too. If you are an at-home gamesmaster, you get to create all these visuals more or less on the fly for your players – and that is excellent at the tabletop. However, it is also gaining penetration on the starting rung of the publishing ladder and this is a bit… less good. I have this idea (and it is just an idea) that it is being driven primarily by writers. And, speaking as a writer, we tend to be a tiny bit weak when it comes to the visual arts. So, we write up a new robot, give some directions to an AI generator, and look upon our new creation – and think, ‘hey, that looks good, it is really shiny and realistic looking!’
Meanwhile, an actual artist is sobbing at the result which has little technical direction and absolutely no soul.
The way, I think, to look at it is this: As a writer/designer, you are not using AI to create your text – because you know exactly how bad it is at that.
The same applies to visual art. We writers tend not to be too good at seeing this, and so can get a bit dippy when we see our words transformed into pictures. I am absolutely not immune to this myself.
At the end of the day, if you have an idea for a publication that you want to get out into the wider world, AI art might well be your best tool. If, however, you want to create a solid foundation that will turn you into a more mainstream RPG publisher in the future… hire a real artist. They will appreciate it and you are going to end up with a better title.
So, is AI the ultimate evil? I don’t think it has to be. I would love an AI that handled all our accounts and finances. That took complete control of our administration. An AI that we could trust to review and create contracts.
A reasonably priced robot that flawlessly packed up all of our mail orders would be lovely.
I mean, this was the promise, right? AI taking over all the boring and repetitive roles so we could focus on all the fun/satisfying stuff. Can we have that, please?
(Caveat: I personally find doing mail orders actually quite satisfying…).
With the way Mongoose is set up these days, we actually act more as a design studio than a traditional publisher and everyone here is a form of creative – we employ no admin people at all, and so all current admin tasks are split between staff. The idea of being able to focus purely on the creative is… attractive.
Business Summary
To summarise, 2024 has been an expensive year for us, but we managed to do it all without borrowing a penny and without breaking every piggy bank. The current financial position is not awful by any measure… I might use the term ‘reasonable’, but it would be nice if we could have a little break before diving into another major investment.
We have still been able to do some ‘outside-of-core-business’ things for the staff, such as office trips and scratching the heads of fluffy Lemurs at a wildlife park, and we are looking forward to doing more next year.
2024 and the Mongoose
Well, that was quite the tumultuous year and we have been kept very busy, but for all the right reasons.
In terms of projects and releases, we managed to get some heavy-hitters out of the door in the form of books like This is Free Trader Beowulf (the complete history of Traveller up to our purchase of it), Bounty Hunter, the Starship Operator’s Manual, and we have been continuing releases of the epic Fifth Frontier War storyline. We have topped off the year with the immensely popular Traders and Gunboats and, all going well, you may just see Clans of the Aslan appearing before we break up for the end of the year.
And, of course, there is the usual free Christmas present for Travellers – expect to see that in early December!
After a break of something like a year and a half, we launched a new Kickstarter project with a third set of Journals of the Travellers’ Aid Society, the books of which will incidentally be going off to print very soon. There may be two Kickstarter projects coming next year, but that will be absolutely dependant on the developmental progress of those books and we certainly have no reliance on Kickstarter to keep the lights on – those projects get selected either because we see the chance to properly expand an existing set of titles or because Kickstarter itself can be an effective tool for marketing.
2024 was not just about Traveller, of course, and Paranoia saw the release of two brand new adventures. Citizen in Name Only is a deep satire of… certain modern events… that sees the players take control of not one but two Troubleshooter teams (on opposing sides, naturally, so their successes only end up hurting themselves – yup, this is how we do satire) in a fight for the future of an entire sector, and perhaps all of Alpha Complex.
Mandatory Duty, on the other hand, casts a critical eye on corporate culture, with the Troubleshooters being assigned to run a brand new investment firm and sell its benefits (?) to high-ranking citizens. The clone count will be high on this one.
Last, but never least, Shield Maidens gained two new hardbacks this year. Dataforge takes a look at some of the intelligent adversaries your warriors may encounter as they travel the Nine Realms, while Tales of Yggdrasil collates several adventures to kick off an entire campaign – starting on the oppressive streets of Midgard and ending up encountering a god in Niflheimr.
So, that was 2024. What can you expect from Mongoose next year?
Traveller in 2025
For obvious reasons, there will be a heavy Traveller theme to 2025!
Singularity: This was originally planned for the very tail end of 2024 (well, about now, actually, as you are reading this!) but this new ‘epic scale’ campaign has ballooned in scope – though you will not have to wait too long now. This will be a books-in-a-slipcase campaign, and the first two books already have their manuscripts in. They have been edited, layout has begun, and we are just waiting for the final writing to be completed. Your Travellers will start in the Imperial Core on an easy but lucrative assignment serving the nobility. However, they will soon discover that very little is as it seems (perhaps literally everything?), and the campaign quickly explodes into a mighty epic that covers huge swathes of Charted Space and brings the Travellers face-to-face with the nature of their own existence and reality itself. Penned by fan-favourite Chris Griffen, this will be one to keep an eye on, likely mid- to late spring.
Vehicle Handbook Update 2025: You asked for it, and it is coming! No mere tweaking, Geir has completely dis-assembled the vehicle construction rules and rebuilt them, piece by piece. Expect a construction system similar to the current rules, but with far more options and balance. From bicycles to mighty land-battleships, from crop dusters to flying aircraft carriers, this re-written and massively expanded vehicle book will carry your Travellers across entire worlds in style, comfort and safety.
The Fifth Frontier War: We will be continuing to alternate between sourcebook and adventures, putting your Travellers right in the front seat of the Fifth Frontier War and in a position to actually alter the map of the Spinward Marches. Early in 2025 you will see Riverland, which for the first time uses Zhodani Travellers, on a mission to help the oppressed populations of Imperial worlds rise up against corrupt rulers. Quickly following this will be Ground Forces of the Fifth Frontier War, doing for ground pounders on both sides what The Imperial Navy did for the fleets of the Imperium. And there will be plenty more titles to follow as we enter another year of the Fifth Frontier War story.
Ine Givar: Vile terrorists or freedom fighters looking to escape the oppression of the nobility? Or both? This will be the complete sourcebook allowing you to decide, giving you everything needed to use the Ine Givar as foils in your campaign, antagonists in the Fifth Frontier War… or as a group of Travellers looking to topple the existing order of the Third Imperium.
Comics: If you have been following Traveller’s comic series, there is more coming in 2025 for you – Far Trader and Riftbreaker will continue, and added to these lines will be Far Trader Insurrection. On top of that, you will also start to see the compiled full graphic novels!
Classic Traveller
As will be obvious to anyone who has seen the current Traveller rules set, at Mongoose we have a proper passion for the first edition ‘Classic’ Traveller. With Mongoose taking ownership of the entire Traveller catalogue, the possibility arose of us doing some work with this piece of gaming history – so how could we turn that down?
Our first step, announced just a week ago, was to add Classic Traveller to the TAS community programme on Drivethru – Classic TAS! This basically allows you to publish your own Classic Traveller titles, using all of GDW’s Classic Traveller as a foundation. We have created a set of free templates to use, including in Microsoft Word format, so it has never been easier to publish your own Traveller material. We look forward to seeing what you all come up with!
However, we could just not leave well enough alone, and some idle chatter led to a brand new project for Classic Traveller. Book 9: Pirate is the first official core release for Classic Traveller in, well, decades, and it will be appearing in both digital and print formats (identical to the original Little Black Books!) in 2025.
Will we do anything else for Classic Traveller? This will depend very much on the reception to Book 9: Pirate, though it has to be said that interest on social media for it has already far exceeded what we had expected, so… maybe? We have already had some (very) vague discussions for Supplement 14…
Traveller’s 50th Anniversary
We are a little ways out on this at the moment, but 2027 will see the 50th Anniversary for Traveller, and we cannot just let this pass without marking the special occasion. We have been collating ideas of what to do in terms of both events and some unique special releases, and these have inevitably sprawled into something gigantic and unrealistic. We will therefore be refining our ideas throughout 2025 and work will properly commence in 2026.
Whether you are a short-term visitor to Charted Space or a long-time resident, we hope to bring you something truly exciting to mark the longevity of one of the best RPGs ever released.
New Traveller Universes
The acquisition of Traveller, plus some unavoidable stalls on writing, has delayed a few projects, but we are very keen to expand Traveller to other universes and other stories, and work has been rolling steadily forward.
Pioneer: This is one that many of you are aware of, and we have been slowly whittling away at this new game. We are calling it ‘Traveller-adjacent’, in that it will not require the current Core Rulebook, but the mechanics will be instantly recognisable to any Traveller player. This has allowed us to bend and twist those mechanics to properly fit the setting – a very near future game where players (the Pioneers) are launched on the first manned missions across the solar system. The initial campaign book will see your players being the first people to step onto Mars, but there will be plenty of activity in the rulebook alone to attain many ‘firsts’ in Earth orbit and on the moon; orbital rescues, building the first moon colony, off-Earth mining, and much more.
The Big Two: In terms of development, Pioneer is well in hand and will soon be passed to our artists and layout. We have therefore been able to begin development of not one but two new ‘Traveller-adjacent’ games, one science-fiction and the other… not. They are not yet ready for public viewing, being in that critical genesis phase, but you may just see one of them towards the end of 2025. The other is much larger in scope, and it will certainly need all of 2025 for development… and maybe 2026 as well. We shall see. More news in the State of the Mongoose 2025!
2300AD
It is no secret that we have faced some issues with writing in 2300AD, unavoidable as they were. However, things are beginning to get back on track and we are looking to bring you at least two new titles in 2025.
Fans of 2300AD will be very familiar with Invasion, as it has appeared in a State of the Mongoose quite a few times now! That said, it looks like we have good news on the horizon and the manuscript should be landing really quite soon. As soon as it arrives we will be fast-tracking it into the production schedule, giving it priority as soon as we can. Invasion will contain around twenty related adventures, a short atlas of the French Arm, all the Kaefer ships, new human, Pentapod and Ylii ships, a couple of large, detailed space stations, campaign rules, and a Traveller-focussed way to run the final battle. Then, a bunch of adventure seeds for after that final battle, and updated information for the atlas to reflect changes that happened during the war.
We also have an extended adventure set on Nous Voila, a borderline garden world on the French Arm – the manuscript is in, it is here, it exists! We are just in the process of deciding whether to commission another adventure or two also set on this world, to give your players a complete environment to explore, but you can expect to see this out in 2025 as well.
Is that all for 2300AD? Not a bit of it!
We want to see how the Classic TAS programme on Drivethru is received, but if it goes half as well as we think it might, we will open up TAS to 2300AD as well – 2300AD TAS! Using the current rules set, this will crack open the 2300AD universe to outside development, allowing you to create your own adventures, ships, characters, and colonies, and then release them all to a (very) hungry audience.
We apologise for the delays that have struck at 2300AD, but hope we can correct this in 2025. Get your Stutterwarp drives warmed up, you are going to need them!
Shield Maidens
There is a lot of passion for the Shield Maidens RPG here at Mongoose – after all, who can turn away from a female-led warrior order in a Viking/Cyberpunk-themed world where players take on both fascist empires and the gods themselves across the Nine Realms?
2025 will see the start of Shield Maidens fiction appearing, beginning with a couple of short stories. The purpose of this fiction is for us to explore the Nine Realms, and to showcase people, places and organisations to you, so you can gain a greater understanding of this universe and how everything works. Hopefully, they will also give you some ideas for encounters and adventures too!
Finally, work is due to start on Vanaheimr, a brand new hardback exploring (one of) the worlds of the gods. Your Shield Maidens will be able to cross the Rainbow Road to Vanaheimr, encounter the inhabitants of this wondrous realm, navigate the lands of Freya herself, and try to avoid being drawn into the machinations of the divine.
Paranoia
With everything going on in the world at the moment, there may never have been a richer time for Paranoia to draw upon. You can be certain Alpha Complex will remain an active (and deadly) place to visit throughout 2025.
Next year, you can expect to see…
Water, Water, Everywhere: One tricky thing about living in an underground dystopia is what to do with indoor waste heat. PowerServ did a bad thing and needs to hide it as temps skyrocket. TechServ hates PowerServ, so they are trying to publicise it instead. And right in between the two? Yep, our brave Troubleshooters who keep getting mini-missions to say heat is rising and then that it is not. This mission satirises climate change and how some pretend it does not exist as the Troubleshooters struggle to do two equally opposite things.
Infiltraitors: Are you a human? Are you sure? Then prove it! In the real world, you often have to prove you’re a human (and not a bot) online. In Alpha Complex, someone made a nifty gadget that uploads a software mod into your Cerebral Coretech. Does this make you a bot or even a rogue AI? More importantly, how can you tell? In a satire of how we struggle to identify bots and AI on the Internet, the Troubleshooters will taste test new algae and infiltrate a group known as Meatbots while their players try to figure out if their character is human or... something else.
Interwebs Famous: Everyone knows you should trust videos more than books or text. Words are slippery but videos are reality! In this mission, a new video posting quota goes about as expected and everyone tries to prank others to become Interwebs Famous. Our intrepid Troubleshooters work with celebrities, post their own videos, and generally satirise influencers and the role of social media in our lives. Surely citizens will see these funny posts and start to like Troubleshooters more, right?
Behind the Curtain: Life in Alpha Complex might be short and brutish, but it is also messy. There are so many organisations in play that it is hard to remember which you have to bribe and which to hide from. Now, GMs can complicate Troubleshooter lives with fresh info on all service groups and all secret societies! You can find new favours, NPCs, schemes, rivalries, sample departments/cells, and a whole lot more.
Legend
We have not spoken about Legend in a long while, so I think it is time we delve a little into what is going to be happening.
At the moment, Legend is fully Open Content, using the OGL, and has proven popular in this guise. However, with the, umm… situation revolving around the OGL, we have been asked to move the game to a new open licence – and ORC seems to be the popular choice.
So, why have we not yet moved? We are not opposed to the idea in any sense, it is just that we have not worked with ORC and are completely unfamiliar with all of its foibles, whatever they may be. Yes, we can spend time investigating it… but we have been a tad busy of late (see all previous text!). Ultimately, this is indeed on the cards (and if not ORC, something similar), but we need to engage with all the ins and outs, and there is just very little available brain bandwidth at the moment. As things stand, Legend continues to run on OGL and, for our part at least, this will not change.
As for Mongoose’s own work on Legend, for quite some time we have been looking at doing a new edition of the game. However, while we will be bringing a new fantasy RPG to light in the future, it will not be driven by Legend. Because of that, we will be sunsetting our own publishing plans for it and effectively turning it over to the community.
May your creations be wondrous and fantastic!
Video Games
Evil Twin Artworks continues to partner with us for video game adaptions of our tabletop titles, and 2025 will see some interesting things emerging.
The follow up to Victory At Sea Pacific, Victory At Sea Atlantic, is out now in Early Access on multiple platforms. Victory at Sea Atlantic is a thrilling naval combat game set in the Atlantic theatre of World War II. Take command of your fleet and navigate the treacherous waters of the Atlantic as you engage in epic battles with enemy warships, subs, and aircraft.
They are now hard at work on their next project, set during the Fifth Frontier War. Traveller: Vanguard pits the Zhodani against Imperial forces in a desperate struggle across the stars as they launch direct assaults on one another’s warships. While it is early days yet, here is an early sneak peek!
Roll20 and VTTs
Paranoia appeared on Roll20 this year (after a long, long time in prep), and now features all supplements and missions released thus far. We will be continuing this support into 2025.
As for other VTTs, work is underway on many of them, to one degree or another, and Traveller titles will continue to appear on Fantasy Grounds for the foreseeable future.
On the wider issue of digital tools to aid play, we have (at long last) started to build an outline of requirements for Traveller. At the moment it very much looks like a Christmas tree, with every idea being hung off it, and it desperately needs trimming down and turning into a more realistic project. This is very unlikely to happen in 2025, but I am hoping development will at least start.
And into the Future
The past few years have focussed primarily on securing a future for Mongoose and the people who work here, strengthening the foundations. This work will continue, but there is light at the end of this particular tunnel. The aim for 2025, overall, is to polish off this foundational reinforcement and have a quieter year building resources and taking care of staff members. No doubt some time will also be spent considering where to go for our Next Big Project.
A year ago in the last State of the Mongoose, we listed a series of primary goals for 2024. How did we do?
- Over the past couple of years or so, we have expanded Traveller from paper-bound RPG to comics, fiction, and a soundtrack. In 2024 and beyond, we will be actively looking for ways to experience Charted Space in a variety of media. (This has been somewhat active, despite all the licensing complications involved in the transfer of property rights – 2nd Dynasty ran a FFW miniatures Kickstarter, more comics were published, we have been discussing video games and there have been talks with – don’t get too excited, every chance they will fizzle to nothing – various parties in Hollywood).
- We want to properly update the TAS programme, and introduce the new content licence for Traveller. Then, we want to push them forward as a key component to Traveller, giving them a wider audience to appreciate all the cool things they are doing. (TAS was updated – and Classic TAS added – and the Traveller Compatibility Licence was released, albeit a little behind schedule meaning releases will appear in 2025 now).
- Our free downloads section is useful… but it is somewhat jumbled at the moment and could use a lot more content. We will be working on both of these in 2024, giving you more tools to use for all of our games, and making them easier to find. (This did not happen, though we have constructed a prototype of the new area – expect to see this become active in early 2025).
- In 2022 we updated the office kitchen, and want to continue the refurbishment of Mongoose HQ to make it a more attractive place to work in. In 2024 we will be aiming to update at least one more section of the office (some of these areas have not been touched in nearly twenty years!). (With the acquisition of Traveller, Twilight 2000, and 2300AD all together in one year, fat chance! However, with these all done, we will begin looking at this again, likely in the bottom half of 2025).
- Continue the education of the staff in running the company, but starting to add more strategic thinking and planning. (Again, the gaining of the IPs pretty much flattened this. Things were done, but only by degrees).
We did okay on those, and will be continuing all things unfinished into next year. However, we need new goals for 2025. Given the big moves in 2024, this will be a shorter list than before, mainly revolving around security and stability.
- Complete the acquisition of the building that Mongoose currently rents, thus putting in place the final brick of security for the company’s future.
- Continue shoring up the company war chest, which is part of the strategy to make Mongoose stable. It is by no means in a critical state but the larger the war chest, the longer bad times Mongoose can endure. Just common sense, really. Connected to this, continue to ensure that the staff are, individually, in a more secure and comfortable place on a financial level.
- Tackle marketing head-on, likely by bringing on a Marketing Tzar/Grand Architect into the fold.
To summarise our entire approach to business these days, Mongoose really only has two primary aims: Support our customers and support our staff. It is my belief that, given a business model that works and emplaced security for the company, if these two goals are followed, everything else has a habit of falling into place.
If you have reached the end of this State of the Mongoose, thank you for sticking through these 6,000-odd words, and thank you for continuing to support us across 2024. We very much hope to see you again in 2025 as we continue to explore new universes, both scientific and fantastic.
All that is left is for everyone here at Mongoose to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, and a prosperous and fun-filled New Year.
Stay safe and keep gaming!
Matthew Sprange
Managing Director
Mongoose Publishing
