GuruShots: Photography Game

Let me preface this whole thing and say, I really like this app. It’s so much fun, especially for an avid photographer like myself. The thing I was completely not expected to find was adult sexual content. When you stumble across it, it is covered with a warning stating “Adult Content.” With a box you can click to show it. That’s all fine and good I suppose. The problem lies in the regulation of it. As I kept voting, I saw many full nudity photos. I don’t just mean full frontal, I mean EVERYTHING. And the profiles of the artists looked like a p*rn magazine. It was astounding how much genuine p*rnography could be allowed on such a harmless app. I say all of this as an adult male concerned for the future generation. I don’t believe exposure to that kind of thing is healthy for young minds. And if there are any young photographers out there looking to expose themselves to great photography and feedback on their own, they could very easily stumble onto adult sexual content because of this app. I understand a lot of people view it as art but I believe, at the very least, the rating of this app should be changed to 17+. Or, in a better scenario, create a different app that’s designed only for that, so that people that want to see beautiful pictures of mountains, don’t have to stumble upon a picture of twin peaks and roast beef. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

The misleading money prize values has been resolved, tool bundles now just say what they are, in app tools. It seems the last update didn’t block me from playing without updating which is good cause I can’t afford a new phone just to play. Sooner or later I won’t have a good enough device to update. The beta battles tab needs to be either worked on or moved until it’s sorted out. It’s been so long with no activity taking place in the feature. Like driving past road construction that has no noticeable improvement. Report button needs far more options. There’s nowhere to report porn except “adult content” but adult content is allowed on the app and not necessarily being reported to get deleted. Porn removal should have priority over adult content reports. Nothing reported for porn should be voted on until reviewed and resolved, and anyone falsely reporting to sabotage should be banned. This would help prevent both the vulgar content and the abuse of the report feature. AI imagery is banned but there’s nowhere to report it making the ban meaningless unless enforced. There’s already people posting entire AI images and getting guru picks/top votes over genuine artists. The block feature is missing. No button exists to block another user but FAQ says there is. Following instructions to block someone leaves you in a wild goose chase. Please fix these issues.

I thought this was an app that would issue creative prompts and you would shoot and upload relevant shots. But you place your photos strategically to gain more votes and if you want to swap a low performing photo you need to purchase “swaps”. If you want to unlock challenges you need to purchase “keys”. You then must vote on photos in the challenge or purchase “fills” to opt out of voting. If you don’t want to “swap” a photo you need to purchase “boosts” and so on. Supposedly you can get feedback but haven’t found that yet. Additionally there are galleries you could submit your photos to and they can potentially be chosen for exhibit but I am not aware of the validity of these exhibitions. I do know the few I have submitted to required “keys”. When you’re new, you’re a “newbie” and need a specific number of votes to progress to “rookie” then up a 9- level scale to “guru”. Downside is all the photos I have worth posting are on my MAC and not on my phone so there is transferring that needs to be done. Although, this is more gratifying than posting on Instagram. I wish there was the option to view the metadata of each photo to see what settings the photographer used to achieve particular shots. Maybe in the update.