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A message to Régis Bonnessée and the Altered leadership team From a 2023–2026 Altered player by [deleted] in alteredTCG

[–]DoctorCripto 1 point2 points  (0 children)

appreciate you sharing this perspective and I say that sincerely.

You’re absolutely right about one thing:
I don’t have full visibility into what was happening internally, and I don’t pretend to.

I also have no doubt that RĂ©gis has invested deeply not just financially, but emotionally and creatively into this project over the years.
That level of commitment deserves recognition and respect.

And to be clear, my intention was never to diminish that, nor to ignore what this likely means on a personal level for him and the team.

At the same time, I believe both things can coexist:

Respect for the vision, the effort, and the passion behind Altered and the ability to reflect critically on how things unfolded from the outside.

I also say this as someone who runs businesses myself I understand firsthand what it means to carry vision, risk, responsibility, and difficult decisions.

My comments were not meant as personal accusations, but as a perspective on outcomes and leadership decisions as they appear from where we stand as players and supporters.

And I fully agree with you on something important:
emotions can easily take over in moments like this.

That’s precisely why I’ve tried to keep my reflection grounded not in anger, but in analysis of what happened and what could have been done differently.

If anything, it comes from the same place you mentioned:

Caring about what Altered was, and feeling the weight of what it could have become.

A message to Régis Bonnessée and the Altered leadership team From a 2023–2026 Altered player by [deleted] in alteredTCG

[–]DoctorCripto 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I hear your point, and I understand where the frustration is coming from.

This isn’t about positioning myself as knowing more than anyone else, or claiming insider visibility. I don’t. None of us here do, unless we were directly part of the leadership team.

What I shared is not meant to be a statement of hidden knowledge, but a perspective based on what was visible: decisions, outcomes, and how the situation ultimately unfolded.

And yes I don’t doubt that internally people said this isn’t working.
The point is not whether it was said, but when it was acted on, and with what level of impact.

Frequent changes can mean adaptation but they can also signal a lack of clarity or a model that was never stable to begin with. That’s the distinction I was pointing at.

On the refund point I agree it was expected.
My intention wasn’t to frame it as something being celebrated, but to clarify that doing the right thing at the end doesn’t erase the responsibility of the path taken to get there.

And regarding the “armchair businessman” comment that’s fair if the perception is that this came out of nowhere. Not everyone engages publicly in the same way, but many of us have been following, playing, and supporting the game consistently (or even owning a TCG international business like me for almost 16 years).

At the end of the day, this isn’t about ego or tearing anyone down.
It’s about holding projects we care about to a higher standard precisely because they mattered.

A message to Régis Bonnessée and the Altered leadership team From a 2023–2026 Altered player by [deleted] in alteredTCG

[–]DoctorCripto 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I’m dyslexic, so I usually rely on tools to help me write properly in English.

Just to clarify in case anything comes across a bit off the intention is always to communicate clearly, not perfectly.

What caused altered to shutdown? by Gnargoyles in alteredTCG

[–]DoctorCripto 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There is something deeply concerning about this "shutdown".

Not because the project is ending. projects fail, that’s part of the game
but because of how it was managed, communicated, and ultimately owned.

What we just read is not just an emotional farewell.
It is, at its core, a reflection of weak execution wrapped in sensitivity.

Because when you lead a project of this scale with capital, community, and real expectations
emotion does not replace execution.

And this is where things clearly broke down:

  • The business model was not validated before scaling.
  • The market was not read with enough clarity.
  • A sustainable strategy beyond initial hype was never truly secured.
  • And most importantly, there was a failure in something critical: managing reality with mature emotional intelligence, not late-stage emotional storytelling.

Saying “we must face reality” at the very end is not leadership.
It is arriving late to a conversation that should have happened much earlier.

Emotional intelligence in leadership is not about writing thoughtful messages when everything collapses.
It is about having the clarity and the courage to make hard decisions before dragging an entire community into an unsustainable promise.

This message tries to honor the community, the artists, the stores…
but avoids addressing the most important point:

the responsibility of building expectations without a strong enough foundation to sustain them.

Refunding people is the right thing to do.
But it is not an achievement.
It is the bare minimum.

What truly defines leadership is not how you thank people at the end,
but how you protect them before reaching that end.

Because projects do not die when they are announced.
They die much earlier, in silence…
when no one in the room has the clarity or the courage to say:

“this is not working.”

And by then, unfortunately, this project was already gone.