@stefnev1 : absolutely ;-)

@Cartref, its not about American superiority, the whole point of the US studio was to improve on diversity. And just when things were picking up, it all gets shut down. And as orclover pointed out, the decision to bring in girls mostly from Ukraine/Russia for 2017 seems to be all about cutting down expenses. Which is fine, but it's gonna ***** diversity. I have nothing to look forward to now.

Gee, a lot of negativity. Its really too bad that a small company needs to make a profit to survive.

Personally, I don't have too much time for those complaints, nor about the ones about the superiority of the American models.

IMHO, over the long course of Totem's history, the best models have been the unknown's who weren't full of themselves and usually from outside the States, but that's just my personal opinion

Loving the glass shows by the way. Would love to see if you could come up with a shower concept and if you could get more girls that squirt like Apolonia.
Yum!

@shodan, sure. They just need to buy a mobile studio. The TotemBus, equipped with the stage, pole, cameras, fans, lighting, photographers, wardrobe, makeup. Let's hope the models don't mind having zero space to themselves while filming for hours. Great idea.

I'm just glad we are now a bit in the know about what's going on with our favorite company. Sad to hear about the closing of the Vegas studio and the loss of our American girls. Also sad to hear about the foreboding changes coming to my favorites, which are the iStripperXXX cards which I look forward to the most.

I do have faith that Totem won't let us down this year though... although I will miss the duo cards...

... have you ever considered, rather than bringing the girls to the studio, taking the studio to the girls? Sort of like a Totem road trip? ;)

And what ever happened to the LA studio? This is now what, like the 3rd time Totem has tried to establish a studio in the US and it ends in failure. They just can't do it. And I disagree that we had no diversity come out of Vegas, we had several Latinas and a couple black models. Which is more than the Paris studio will get in 10 years. So enjoy your Eastern Euro clones everyone. I'm out.

I will follow wherever the tail leads... interested to see what you discover Totem.

Really Hoping for comeback of XXX duos... but, duos were inexistant in the last year and now you're about to ***** or reduce drasticly XXX : sad sad news... 😭 😭 😢

Well, I'm done. This means the death of diversity. I'm just not too crazy about buying cards featuring same looking girls over and over again, no matter how good the technical quality is. Just like with the rest of America, it seems Russia has won. Good game Putin, good game.

Wow, this is really bad news. I didn't know that Totem was closing down the U.S. studio. I didn't like all of the American girls but did love most of them. Maybe Totem can invest some of the money their saving to hire a U.S. exotic dance instructor to come in and teach the Euro girls how to move.

@orclover Is making some really good points and I do agree with a bunch of them that were made. I do hope that this move wasn't just a big push to save on some extra coin and that we get a good quality of shows in return. I do know personally that if I see the same types of models as I did when I first discovered VG and DB that has now become iStripper that I probably will NOT be investing more into this and just enjoy the collection that I have so far. It honestly feels like they are taking a big step back instead of forward but I will keep hope that this isnt the case. It was models like Melisa, Zafira, Ava Dalush, Samia Duarte, and Liza Del Sierra that got me hooked to this and I hope to continue to find models that stick out like they do to me.

Yes i do know that @PavelChicherin. I hve many cards of The Red Fox and still looking for that right Poto.

Totem raised prices because of 3k and the American studio, 3k is not a benefit to a majority of users and now the American studio is shutdown. Why exactly are we paying more than before the American studio opened? The variety and quality of girls dropped, even if you like Ukrainians, we are getting exclusively ukrainians now, and that is a lower quality product than has ever been produced by totem. I can't believe customers just take such a drop in quality and diversity like it is a positive. Totem is effectively saying we will provide you with less options, and less quality, but because it is cheaper to do so, we will still make as much money as before because we only need to scout Kiev. Should we be saluting totem because they made a selfish business decision that is obviously not good for customers? What are they going to spend the extra income on? More girls from Ukraine? This is fixable if they focus on bringing in girls like Viola, Merry, Lucy Li, Melisa, Nekane. They were girls that had range in that they could dance in a western style, could do the splits, shake, they were gorgeous, and they could dance in classy manner. Nancy, Gloria, Estonika are not nearly as talented in their dance skills or beauty, they rare do splits, no shaking of any kind, and their diversity of moves is severly lacking. And in the case of Estonika, you can find her online shaking her butt, just not on istripper. We will really know totem's mind as the year progresses. If we get really hot exclusives, girls that can truly dance, with great outfits then totem made a good business decision that is good for all involved, if we continue to get girls that do not smile, cannot dance, that reuse the same outfits, that are from the same country...then we have been duped, and I imagine totem is in for big losses.

Las Vegas studio will be closed at the beginning of 2017. Over the course of 24 months in 2015 and 2016, we produced about 40 girls there, with some great names such as Megan Rain, Jayden Cole, Valentina Nappi, Jillian Janson, Mia Malkova and Arianna Marie. Running a studio remotely is as costly as difficult and we kept struggling with recurrent casting, technical or wardrobe problems. We’re very happy of the addition American girls gave to our girls catalog but it made little sense to produce more in Vegas for now.

Hopefully you can still provide American strippers to those who want them.

Ok I found a tattoo on The Red Fox. It was hard to find the right photos she dosn`t show it well.

Nice

Nice

The Glass clips are absolutely fantastic I love them. I'm 50/50 on the American girls some of them were great but the majority were ***** (large and square jawed) which is fine for some people but Ive passed on most of the cards that have from there. I do hope to see a wider variety of ethnicities in the future though. Keep up the great work Totem.
P.S. As a ***** complaint I wish the carosel in the featured screen would make it more obvious if the new releases were XXX or not as I have now accidentally purchased several cards that I otherwise wouldn't.

The remaining Gloria outfits :o

veri nice grl

I am happy to hear about more European women. I know people here have strong opinons on the women from the USA but I avoid those cards. So for me at least this is good news.

Read comment from D7 above. I agree with what he said. There is no x on Girls store or preview to delete model. I can delete payed for modwl only..

I believe the idea of changing the XXX cards is not to have 2-3 cards of one model essentially doing the same 3-4 scenes in a different outfit. The average scene runs about 10 minutes, something like 2 longer scenes would have less repetition. Honestly, I will turn off a couple scenes on the xxx shows just to avoid the repetition. The things I like a lot out of the xxx cards, usually involve longer stripping and teasing, the building of anticipation. So if this is the goal I am excited to see it implemented.

As far as the Vegas studio, it is a sad loss, and a tough break getting stuck in a lease for a poor location. Totem pushed a lot of American girls the last few months and really brought us some spectacular performers.

@number6

If you survey deskbabe and istripper xxx cards since their inception, you will find very, very few cards with English native speaking girls speaking to the camera, so what I am suggesting will be enhancing diversity not hindering it.

I would love to have Spanish, danish, Russian, French girls speak to the camera in their own native tongue, not in broken English, in fact, they sound more natural, appealing and erotic to me if they were to speak to the camera in their own language as they do in a few cards, even though I don't understand their language.

My point is the model speaking to the cameras in an xxx setting is a very attractive concept to me, and the girls not being fluent in English and being asked to do it in English result in lot of stress on the model and this is clearly demonstrable in some of the awkward xxx cards where you can see the stress on the model herself. Hence, my suggestion to recruit more native English speakers, because it will enhance the audience experience.

To put this move in more terrible terms:

Totem is a local resturant that serves a very unique cuisine. They went bankrupt but two years ago with new investors, new advertising, they provided the same cuisine but with much better and more expensive ingredients. They also raised their prices %20-50%. After two years they are now replacing the more expensive ingredients with much cheaper and less tasty ingredients. But keeping the same pricing, all the while pumping more money into advertising. Oh yeah, and to save them money, they ask their customers to provide storage space and transportation for their food because storage space and transportation is expensive. And to make up for the less tasty, cheaper food, that still costs the same, they rub the food against a piece of glass to make it look better. Yikes!

I would like to say i'm upset about the US studio but as @Number6 said it really wasn't providing much divesity as is. I don't care where they come from just get different ethnic females here!

[quote]I would like to remind the Totem team that Totem has an international audience for whom diversity is a valuable commodity.!

Yes and many of those International and diverse members do not speak English.

Finally, I would urge Totem especially for the xxx product to recruit talent from English speaking countries,

Not much use to those international and diverse members who do not speak English.

:-(

As for closing the American studio I think it is a bit of an extreme reaction to them electing Trump.

:-)

To be honest though, it really didn't offer the additional diversity that we hoped it would, so I don't think that I'll particularly miss it and better to close it if it is a financial drain.

For me I would like to see many more middle/far eastern girls (Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, etc)

I would also like to see a return of the XXX duo cards - even if it would be at an additional cost for the cards. It doesn't have to every week or even every month but the occasional one 3 or 4 times a year would be nice.[/quote]p

If you survey deskbabe and istripper xxx cards since their inception, you will find very, very few cards with English native speaking girls speaking to the camera, so what I am suggesting will be enhancing diversity not hindering it.

I would love to have Spanish, danish, Russian, French girls speak to the camera in their own native tongue, not in broken English, in fact, they sound more natural, appealing and erotic to me if they were to speak to the camera in their own language as they do in a few cards, even though I don't understand their language.

My point is the model speaking to the cameras in an xxx setting for is very attractive conceptions to me, and the girls not being fluent in English and being asked to do it in English resultsi on a lot of stress on the model and this is clearly demonstrable in some of the awkward xxx cards where you can see the stress on the model herself. Hence, my suggestion to recruit more native English speakers, because it will enhance the audience experience.

For the first time ever I do not have the desire to see the company succeed, if all I have to look forward to is skinny, stone faced models that are only hired because they are cheap. And watching as more money is spent on advertising, demo making, and selling of clothes online, as the product weakens and weakens. Hope I am wrong, and maybe Rex will clarify some of his more hopeless statements.

I don't care where the girls come from, but please more Black, Middle Eastern, and Asian girls; Also I miss the old Vgirl clips where the girls were doing mundane things like ironing or sweeping or exersizing while in various states of undress (that's Hot), Even a clip like the Mandy one from the 1st version of Vgirl where she walks out in a towel, flashes us and walks off.

I agree! That was great.

And please stop blackmailing your customers by saying, "do you still want istripper?" If we don't do this thing then istripper will be lost forever...I can tell you I stick with the product partially because of the potential of the product and the staff transparency. This move is due to greed and incompetence in the istripper roll out. I am fine with the incompetence, everyone makes mistakes, but I know it is greed because you didn't say we were replacing American girls with Spanish, German, French, Dutch girls who are amazing and very Americanized, no we are replacing them with the cheapest option regardless of what the customers want because our customers will pay, and we will threaten bankruptcy if we need to make further cuts to the quality of the product. Lets just add more glass scenes or gimmicks, and the collectors will keep buying. Not a big deal in the scheme of the world, but at least be honest about your intentions and stop acting like customers are the center piece of these decisions. I mean, jesus, 5% of my harddrive is being used so you guys can get free server space.

I totally agree @orclover

This move is purely money based, not based on providing what customers want. The survey just said that customers want curvy girls who can dance, and then Rex says we are bringing in more Ukrainian and Russian girls. They are the lot that definetely cannot dance, and are not curvy as a whole. The reason Ukrainians and Russians are popular is pricing. The average yearly income of a Russian and Ukrainian is about $4000 USD. And has been dropping precipitously over the last few years because of world politics. This is a great opportunity for totem to make a profit, cheap girls that their obsessive followers will buy. In comparison the best dancers come from US and France where the average yearly income is from 30 to 80k. They made some major mistakes in their roll out of istripper, as they have admitted to...mistakes that were unecessary, as girls sell the product, not demos and gimmicks. They continue to waste money on xxx cards that come out once a week, and then they have to cut half of their production and replace it with a subpar product. This move is so obvious. I love totem and it is sad to see the product weaken...it feels like the era when they went bankrupt, all over again. I just hope totem nevers says they are trying to provide us with the best product, if you were doing so, then you would have a studio in the country with the most professional dancers in the world.

I don't care where the girls come from, but please more Black, Middle Eastern, and Asian girls; Also I miss the old Vgirl clips where the girls were doing mundane things like ironing or sweeping or exersizing while in various states of undress (that's Hot), Even a clip like the Mandy one from the 1st version of Vgirl where she walks out in a towel, flashes us and walks off.

Bad News: American Girls were the bulk of my buying in the last year

Good News: I will save a ton of money,

I guarentee Totem will rue the closing of the American studio, as now there is a great contrast between the entertainment quality of eastern European girls and the great American girls provided. I cannot buy cards anymore with the likes of Nancy, Gloria, even Estonika because their skills are so below the professional american girls. I didn't notice this until we had such a great run of American girls. I do not understand how totem can keep xxx alive even though it is hemorraging money but then close the american studio completely. Oh well, like I said, my bank account will be larger and totem's smaller in the future, hope they can bring in some American dancers when they visit europe.

Rex, I fully agree with all of your points!

I want XXX cards to be entertaining AND explicit...they don't have to have "accessories" (dildoes) in my opinion.

Selling the outfits on ebay is a grand idea. I know they used to be given away to triple diamond members like me, but I'd rather see money invested in better shows. Note: I never won an outfit, but that's all right.

If the US studio is a cash drain, I agree...shut it down.

Slight nudity in previews is a great idea. Revealing large or distracting tattoes is something I would like to see.

@REX Thank you for heads up. I've been with you since Virtuagirl, V2. I will say V2 is still my favortie I don't have that computer anymore so I lost all of the girls i had with V, V2. The themes you had with V2 were better there was more choose like threesomes the only thing they didn't have sexy. thats where DB made it better with Duos wish they did threesomes with DB You had more variety of girls with V2. V.HD, Deskbabes Got better with content. I hope
Istripper will get better. I have faith, but please Have more black women. I hope you will bring DUO cards back I understand the cost of having two more girls. you could Shoot three or more shows at the sametime of the solo acts of both girls and one DUO show . I really like the glass shows like to see more. would like to see it With two girls splashing each other and a dlidos on the glass. I would also like to see that with xxx solo show, cards

These news are very much to my liking. The girls are just as great all over the world so you working where it's easiest for you and the girls is a big plus.

Can I hope this means you can start thinking about doing shows with fun props like cars, bikes, bathtubs and so on again? I really miss those.

this sucks . i join istripper to see keisha grey kimmy granger jenna satinva adriana chechik . i like american cards. please do more american girls in the future. yall get a studio in la or miami

please book more american models. get a studio in la or miami

And why would a studio in LA or Miami fair any better than the one in Vegas which they have had to close?

And why more American models?

Unless they are much more racially diverse than the ones we've already had then, IMHO, they aren't particularly more beautiful or better performers than many of the European girls that we have.

I would like to remind the Totem team that Totem has an international audience for whom diversity is a valuable commodity.!

Yes and many of those International and diverse members do not speak English.

Finally, I would urge Totem especially for the xxx product to recruit talent from English speaking countries,

Not much use to those international and diverse members who do not speak English.

:-(

As for closing the American studio I think it is a bit of an extreme reaction to them electing Trump.

:-)

To be honest though, it really didn't offer the additional diversity that we hoped it would, so I don't think that I'll particularly miss it and better to close it if it is a financial drain.

For me I would like to see many more middle/far eastern girls (Indian, Chinese, Thai, Japanese, etc)

I would also like to see a return of the XXX duo cards - even if it would be at an additional cost for the cards. It doesn't have to every week or even every month but the occasional one 3 or 4 times a year would be nice.

please book more american models. get a studio in la or miami

I just heard that Playboy magazine will again show nudity... maybe in time Totem can once again return to the US... I still have hope. The time of miracles aren't over =)

Thanks for the update REX and I wish you a prosperous year for 2017. May the models be even more beautiful and charming! Thanks for a great product and thanks to the Team and Mods for making this venture work so great.

Cheers!
Jununger

OK, I love Slavic beauty, so Ukraine, Russia - yes!
But I do miss some diversity, so I do hope it's not just these two countries... ;)

Studio in Vegas... I did like a few models that were working there, but some of them were just famous (and most likely - expensive) names with very little sex appeal. And the quality was terrible - girls looked like they ***** from some skin issues, they were "yellowish". :(
I'd love if Totem could keep some of the girls "in the loop" and invite them over to Paris, or just take advantage of their visit in Europe caused by other assignments.

XXX cards: I really miss girls using voice to spice things up. I don't mind the language (obviously, it helps if I understand the words, but not necessary) - the tone, the seductive phrase do magic. For that reason I very often wish that there were less explicit cards with sound. Some girls for sure could work magic fully clothed with seductive voice and moves. I miss duos too, but I can for sure relate to issue mentioned (not liking one of the girls). Still: I buy most of the duos. Even if one of the models is not in my type the "action" makes it so worth it! Please, at least *try* to add a duo card from time to time...

And the glass shows... brilliant! I'm sooo hooked! Even if I don't like girl very much I almost defenceless when I see new card in that category. Finger is not listening to me any more and hits "Get Her Naked", almost against my will! AWESOME idea, person who came up with that one should get some serious bonus! ;)

I too am sad about losing the U.S. studio but I do have a little experience doing business outside of the U.S. and know the costs are prohibitive for anything "international" so I can understand some of the reasoning behind it.

I agree with a comment above, about it being cheaper to fly the model to France over having the studio in the states but travel of any kind is spendy and if the girl is popular here in the states then she probably won't want to take the time to make the trip without getting paid well to do it. I doubt we'll see it very often... 😢

I also agree with the calls for diversity. It's been one of my peeves as well here. We have a LOT of caucasion girls here but only a few each of truly Asian, Black or Brown girls. I don't need well known porn superstars to dance for me on my desktop. Any pretty girl from virtually anywhere who is willing to take off her clothes and strut her stuff on stage is fine with me. Don't care what her skin color is or what language she speaks at home either.

And I agree with @Dorsai6 in that I love to hear the girls talk! Obviously if she can speak English that's a plus for me but really just hearing her voice makes the show more personal to me.

Still, in the end, loving the format here and just want to see it continue long into the future. I am trying to do my part by buying cards regularly and not whining too much about the little stuff. Keep the pretty girls coming and I will keep buying!

The closing of the vegas studio is a sad news indeed! Not for the loss of Totem's physical presence in the US, but because the Vegas studio was an access point from which to recruit a diversity of American talents. America has a diversity of "gene pool" that gets reflected in the multitudes of skin tones, body shapes, and ethnic backgrounds of the performers recruited! No matter how stunning Russian and Ukrainian models are, and they are!, American models will be missed!

I would like to remind the Totem team that Totem has an international audience for whom diversity is a valuable commodity. Please Totem team, keep your eyes on the prize, the prize in your game is variety, and lots of it. Keep your efforts at recruiting models from all corners of the world: Great Britain, Scandinavia, Canada, the US, France, Spain, Australia, Japan, Hungary, Greece, Latin America, etc, etc. That is what will make your product appealing, unique, and exciting to us, your loyal customers. If financial concerns are an issue, if from each pack of ten Russian or Ukrainian models, we can get a single American, Australian, South African, Swede, Spanish, or German model every three weeks or month, that will be great! At least make the effort to recruit a diverse talent!

Finally, I would urge Totem especially for the xxx product to recruit talent from English speaking countries, and in production to urge the girls to speak up, teasing their audience, just like the old shows. This is something I missed greatly in the new shows, where the models are silent and not teasing the audience every now and then and I think the language barrier is part of the problem! And please do not do away with duos completely.

Thanks always for your efforts at making istripper a great and an enjoyable product!

@Dorsai Kareoke clips ofc would be out of the question..just follow the bouncing boob just won't do 😐

Sounds Awesome, keep the XXX cards in production they are erotic fun excitement. Super outfits and fun toys.
The non-XXX cards are amazing and a real pleasure, Keep the wonderful incredible outfits coming The glass shows are cool.
All of the models are fabulous with sensational videos and photo galleries.
Make the needed changes to keep iStripper the erotic 5 star production classic. Thanks.

Just one more item I prefer ink free models.

I like this news.
Especially Ukrainian and Russian models part.

With the possible changes to XXX cards, I wonder what will be done with clips where the model speaks. I really like those clips even if I don't understand the language. I wonder if it is possible to have some speaking clips in regular cards. Come to think of it, it would be nice if speaking clips were identified like swing clips and glass clips are now. There are still many flag bits available in the clip numbering scheme.

iStripper XXX cards will evolve in 2017. We’re tuning the production to stay closer to regular cards, with an explicit twist and two or three masturbation / orgasm clips on the table.

So the XXX cards will not be XXX anymore. A virtuagirl card with some xxx clips is not a deskbabe card. It would be better to have even more explicit content in the iStripperXXX cards, than cutting it down to only 2 - 3 clips.