I am a double diamond member but I am finding it difficult to spend on cards these days. I have the money but not the motivation. Of my +1200 cards, only about 300 are in the playlist full time, which means I bought a lot of cards on hope but then deleted them. Buyers remorse keeps me from buying at this point. I imagine this happens to all users to some extent. To the outside observer it seems that the current system works but we no longer have discounts or sales, we have a lack of info for cards, a lack of good demos, and good reviews makes buying bad cards very discomforting, I will not buy if I have any doubts about the quality of the card. Here is a solution:

Offer every card for 33 % of original value to rent for 3 days. So Mine would be 5 credits to rent for three days. If I love it, then I would have to pay 15 tokens to keep it for life...that means I would pay 20 credits for cards I love. If I don't love it, then I have only spent 5 and I am much more likely to continue to spend 5 on every card in the hopes that I find one that I want forever. The reality is every card is different, girls have really great cards,and really poor cards, all shot in a day or two. Abigaile is a perfect example..she has one card that is top 10 all time, but the other 5 are medicore...if she was released today...I would have bought her first and skipped on the other 5...meaning I spent 15 tokens for 6 cards and missed the best card, and with bad reviews, useless rating, and poor demos most people would have missed it as well. With my system...at the very worst I would have spent 30 on 6 cards, just to rent...and I would have bought the yellow swimsuit one so I would have spent 45 tokens for 6 cards.

I would love it if Totem did what you suggest, but I don't think it is practical. The big uncertainty is whether this would increase Totem's overall revenue. I don't see how this could be predicted. In my case your idea would probably result in me spending less money than I do at present. Right now I buy every card that looks appealing considering the model's prior performances on other cards I already own. Under you proposal I would rent first and only buy the ones I like. It is unlikely that I would rent more cards than I currently buy. I also see two cost issues that would discourage Totem from doing this:

1. Bandwidth for card downloads must be a major expense to Totem. You suggestion would increase that cost.

2. Implementing this idea would require considerable programming effort. To Totem this is another significant expense and a possible source of defects that could irritate customers.

Another consideration is respect for the customer. The poor rating and no review system is purposeful. It keeps us in the dark, and we buy cards "hoping" the show will be good. This has a negative effect on sustainable buying. Buy enough cards that do not stay in the playlist, waste enough money, and you stop investing. It is just human nature. Giving us a choice to experience the card will keep attention on the software, and increase buyer morale.

I just know from experience that people are going to ignore a ton of great cards because the first couple were a dud for a particular performer, it happens with nearly every girl. Even the best have up and down cards.

We buy all of our cards, hoping they will live up to our expectations. Sometimes they don't. Most of the time they do.

Personally, I can usually judge whether or not a girl can perform well enough from the demos. Or if they have any odd quirks that might make me think, this girl's not quite all there (and there are a few!)

For the cost of a decent hot dog or cup of coffee, I'm not worried if the odd card turns out to be a less than good one :)

I've deleted one of my 763+ cards as I thought the girl was just too way off base for my liking ;)

I buy almost all cards here. I will always buy the first of a new girl. Then after i watched her full show completely i decide if she is worth either to buy all her other cards or only if the outfits fits my personal preferences or if i will pass on all of her other cards.
In the last weeks all new girls fell into the first category. Totem is really great with casting.
Only exception was Malena Fendi who got into the pass category for me.
But actually i am not unhappy if i find a girl that i can pass on. There are still plenty i really like.
From the latest new girls Mia Malkova impressed me most with her flexability. Thats damn impressive. Normally you have to go to the Circus to see something like that.
But all latest girls were great in their own way.
I agree with orclover that most girls have strong and weak shows. Often you can guess from the outfit which it will be but of course not always.
Don't decide only by looking at the card images! very often they look much better once you see them perform.
If you like a girls from looks at least a bit give her a chance and get one of her shows. for older cards it makes sense to take the one with the highest rating unless you really dislike that particular outfit.
For freshly released card just take the risk

Yeah I completely understand...I'm always very picky :D (I have a certain EYE for things lol)

A great card is made by much more than looks...such as eye contact, persona, movements, progression of stripping, and then looks. A demo gives almost none of this information. I just know that lots of content sites offer rentable content, and will get double paid if the suitor really likes the product. It would be interesting to see if their new sales approach, without discounts, increased price, and a weak review and rating system has ***** them, or if the advent of the US version has boosted profits enough. Hope the latter to be honest, this is my favorite "software" and wouldn't want it to struggle.

well i think the main risk with renting a show for a day would be for me that i would rent the show and watch it once and unless its simply mindblowing i would not buy it afterwards even if i liked it. why? because there are already new shows i haven't seen yet that i can rent. The way i use iStripper i very rarely watch a show twice anyway because i just don't have the time for that with up to 6 new shows per week. I surely still have a ton of shows i haven't seen yet. so in the end with customers like me Totem would make less profit if they offer a rental system.
it would only work if the number of new shows would go down so it makes more sense and you do have the time to watch older ones again.
I just let some numbers speak for themselves: i currently own 2662 cards. If i would decide to watch them all again and do it by watching one show per day thats enough for 7 years. With 2 shows per day which would mean 1 hour for older and about 90 minutes per day for newer shows its still 3.5 years.
I normally don't use iStripper like its originally intended just letting it play in small mode while doing other stuff on the PC. well what other stuff do i do on the PC? Gaming for one and normally in full screen mode. Browsing the internet to read news or to watch some videos on youtube or series and movies. Thats also something i do in fullscreen mode. During these activities i don't want to have girls dancing on my desktop. So when i use iStripper i do it to watch a show in full mode and do nothing else. So with such little time to enjoy the girls why should i buy a show after i rented it and saw it?

Starryk, as far as I can gather it seems that their main focus was on people with 1000 to 3000 cards. In fact in a online periodical rex makes a point that there are some people who will buy every card to fill out a collection, and this point was used as evidence that VGHD is going to be successful. This can't be what is ultimately best though for totem, or the rest of us. With their new branding, marketing, global access, and anti-piracy measures I think it is time for them to open up access to a group that may not want to spend $5000 on a collection. Think how many thousands only have 100 cards in their collections, when they would have rented 300 or 400 or even a 1000. To me the only risk is an increased chance of piracy, coding challenges and costs. The coding would be more complicated to make sure we could not rip the files and play them on another player. The all or nothing policy with this kind of software is more risky, I would imagine that most people choose nothing, and disappear into a chasm of free porn.