KING STAR gone bankrupt

[DeepCard]

Google translated:

KING STAR PCC
Yongxing Cards (Guangdong) Co., Ltd. has now gone bankrupt due to poor management.
The King Star project team is not affected and will operate normally. Our crowdfunded products will be delivered as scheduled according to the project agreement.
From now on, the King Star project team will continue to work hard to bring you high-quality playing cards.

In the comments section, they mentioned that they no longer have a factory, but the project team will continue moving forward.

[kevork]

Wonder what this still mean moving forward. Their decks are really confusing to me when I don't see anything on the tuck except King Star, so I've yet to own a deck of theirs. Glad to hear they'll still be functioning. We need diversity in the community.

[Adamthinks]

I wonder what that means for designers that were using them to produce decks. Such as Gio has done with a few decks and with the upcoming Chaos Maelstrom. I also recall reading speculation that Room One cards was using their factory to print cards.

[TorresOVER]

I wonder what that means for designers that were using them to produce decks. Such as Gio has done with a few decks and with the upcoming Chaos Maelstrom. I also recall reading speculation that Room One cards was using their factory to print cards.

I want to clarify that Room One does not use any external factories for printing our cards.
We have our own printing facilities where we produce our decks with unique finishes and stocks.
The information regarding using another factory is not accurate.

[kevork]

Dexter was using King Star for his Unity decks. We'll see if he'll still be able to print using them.

[Zzzzi]

This kingstar has explained in their chat group that the bankrupt is kingstar's factory kspcc, which is actually kingstar's share, kingstar has no dominant power, and his bankruptcy does not affect the continued production of kingstar. In fact, the two businesses began to separate at the beginning of the year. kingstar has taken over the overseas business entirely. kingstar also explained in their Instagram post.。

[kevork]

It doesn't make any difference. Our original factory, Yong Xing , went bankrupt. For kingstar, everything is normal. We will have a new production line, which will not affect the production of cards.

Perhaps it's easier than I think to just switch production lines, but as a business they also wouldn't want to scare their customers.

[Zzzzi]

It doesn't make any difference. Our original factory, Yong Xing , went bankrupt. For kingstar, everything is normal. We will have a new production line, which will not affect the production of cards.

Perhaps it's easier than I think to just switch production lines, but as a business they also wouldn't want to scare their customers.

Yes, the reason why they must announce this news is that kspcc (Yong Xing) was founded first, and then kspcc injected capital into the found of kingstar, the news of kspcc bankruptcy is required to be publicized on a specific website by laws, although not everyone will pay attention to it. But if someone pays attention (As I looked up kingstar's ownership structure on that website a couple of times) and kingstar doesn't announce in advance, it can have very bad consequences.

[Evilgamer]

Im still not sure reading that (probably translated, or at least not written by an English speaker) exactly what all the impacts are.

For one it makes it sound like they can just stand up a new printer (of quality) and keep moving like its nothing...Cartamundi certainly took an L on that earlier in the year.

but also for something like the recent Egypt deck that was supposed to have part of their run printed by Kingstar what is that going to end up meaning.

KS was emerging as an alternative to WJPC for quality cards. so I fail to see this as anything positive.

As usual Giovanni (TWI) seems to be well ahead of it

No, Chaos is already printed. Maelstrom and Pandemonium are already at Gw, Bestiary is in transit. Dualism, also printed by Kingstar, is being taken care of. I will send an update when I have more info!

[kevork]

Patrick Zhu (liaison in the US for King Star) mentioned that this is "only a division." All operations will resume, and new factory space has been set up.

So it might be that they got ahead of things before the news needed to come out publicly.

[montenzi]

I’m not up for a debate and couldn’t care less if Kingstar survives or goes under.

I don’t want to disclose everything; this is just my personal opinion, as I can’t know every detail. However, here’s a personal message for designers: avoid them at all costs, now and in the future. The way everything was handled left me with zero reason to even consider using their service again. I had a project at the proof approval stage, and recently noticed a few things that snowballed into news that the factory was going bankrupt. I've basically wasted a month of my time. Here’s the point—they knew about these issues and still kept taking money from us. Imagine if this had been a live Kickstarter project and a designer had paid them in full! I personally paid in full in advance when I ordered Legendarium!

In short, their statement says things are fine and that they’re continuing, but read carefull —it means the factory is closed, and the new one isn’t open yet, though it might be in the future. By the way, ask them for the "new" factory address. Some designers and staff went to a separate branch of the company. But where’s the sales team/project managers? They were let go. Without a sales rep, they’re basically just a design company right now, without a printing plant. As I understand it, they don’t have a factory, and orders are likely to be outsourced. My order, for instance, will be printed by another company, not through them. Each case is different, though; people who worked with them through Patrick may still have their orders completed. For those who went through the factory directly, it may be more challenging. But they might want to protect their reputation and help get these orders done. If they open a new factory, great—but I don’t care anymore! That’s it.

[Patrick_Zhu]

Well, I wasn’t going to make a UC account. But here I am.

To simply put, factory is set up, warehouse is set up, production resumed this week. Whether people believe it or scrutinize it is ultimately up to people. I have seen the videos from the owner regarding this status.

King Star regularly receives harsh comments every time some news come out or there was a mistake made. Frankly, it’s been kind of pointless to explain further even after they make genuine and honest announcements. You will just have to see the decks once they are done; whether it’s for the Egypt mythology decks / Giovanni’s decks.

King Star has yet to not fulfill a project / not deliver a custom designed deck. I hope people know that. That’s all I wanted to say and people can interpret this however they want. Choose to support their projects if you believe them, or not because you have so many reasons to do so.