Review Insights · App Store
GuruShots: Photography Game
Gurushots Ltd · 5,167 ratings · ★ 4.4
4.4
★★★★★
5,167 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 66 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"photos"
17 negative reviews mention this · 26% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They want you to spend your money.. I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in eve…" - dana poimnt
2
"challenges"
13 negative reviews mention this · 20% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Can not sign in. Most of the time I use my laptop , but being out and still on challenges I wanted to be able to use my phone . Somehow I can not sign in on my iPhone , the only option is signing up as the new account…" - Mareckitx68
3
"coins"
12 negative reviews mention this · 18% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They want you to spend your money.. I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in eve…" - dana poimnt
4
"anything"
11 negative reviews mention this · 17% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Fake. Haven’t won anything after a year and the best aren’t actually winning" - Hyperbob2975
5
"game"
10 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They want you to spend your money.. I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in eve…" - dana poimnt
6
"work"
10 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Buggy. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling but I still have the same issue of when I open the app, the screen is a bit darker and completely unresponsive. I hand to close and open a few times for this to work correctly but once I close the ap…" - Chuck3725
7
"freezes"
10 negative reviews mention this · 15% of all complaints
★★★★★ "fun game but it freezes when i add a foto.. what the title says." - Ange1na
8
"photo"
9 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They want you to spend your money.. I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in eve…" - dana poimnt
9
"play"
9 negative reviews mention this · 14% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They want you to spend your money.. I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in eve…" - dana poimnt
10
"every"
8 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "They want you to spend your money.. I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in eve…" - dana poimnt
11
"into"
8 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "No selfies. For art sake, people, stop putting selfies on here. This is supposed to be about art, and not your self centered nonsense that belongs on Instagram. Stop bringing your ego into art. At least, if you’re going to do a selfie on an art site, m…" - ReallyAngryAtIdiots!
12
"love"
8 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Have to buy coins. I love the concept of this app, but in order to enter a competition you have to use coins. You’re only given 50 or 100 coins to start. Each competition is 50 coins. If you don’t win the competition, you don’t win anymore coins. If you don’t…" - Athleticgirl62
📋 All 66 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
Buggy
I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling but I still have the same issue of when I open the app, the screen is a bit darker and completely unresponsive. I hand to close and open a few times for this to work correctly but once I close the app and come back to it the problem happens again
Was great… now a Scam!
This app used to be fun and was part of my daily activity until then he started using the coin scam and turbos. The turbos are rigged to produce income for pay to play and the rules are bogus! Same photos up against each other 2 times with different results each time. It is not about quality of photos anymore but a way to gain profit! Total scam now wrapped in a photo game!
Was once great!
This was once an excellent app, and a great supportive community. Now it’s a micro transaction, ai slop, marketplace.
Endless prompts to pay
They recently updated the app to prompt users to pay for items every time they open the app. Even when I close out of the popup, it still tries to open my Apple Pay to force a payment. Really sus. Like anyone would pay $5 for one key to unlock a Boost for when challenge so you can earn 30 coins. I like the photo sharing aspect but terrible app experience.
Cheating on Coins
WOW They are cheating on coins. I have screenshots to show it. I had a 3 W streak with 450 coins, I won one more duel, 4 W streak with 390 coins. When coins are sold and they remove coins, what are they doing?
Can not sign in
Most of the time I use my laptop , but being out and still on challenges I wanted to be able to use my phone .
Somehow I can not sign in on my iPhone , the only option is signing up as the new account…
Somehow I can not sign in on my iPhone , the only option is signing up as the new account…
You need to pay to play
You need to buy coins to join challenges. I don’t understand the concept other than paying the owner of the app to share your photos for a chance to win double coins of the entrance fee.
No selfies
For art sake, people, stop putting selfies on here. This is supposed to be about art, and not your self centered nonsense that belongs on Instagram. Stop bringing your ego into art. At least, if you’re going to do a selfie on an art site, make sure it tells a story and don’t just turn your camera on yourself and say look at me. and More, a person should not be allowed to keep their rank as a guru forever. Earning it one time means you never get someone else a chance to win. It’s ridiculous. A person who has one a guru challenge should then be reverted back to the beginning after like maybe a week or a month. Letting people stay at the guru level is not fair to everyone else who deserves an equal chance to win. It’s like going to a martial arts tournament except somebody who has one first place in a year before, is allowed to keep winning first places without earning it. photography is like the martial arts. You’ll have to keep earning your place in the tournament. This app is more than just ridiculous. It’s a scam. It’s why I left and I will never come back. Because I noticed that, everyone that has gotten a guru title gets to keep that title till the end of time. While the rest of us struggle even to get to second or third place from the starting point. It’s not fun when you do it like that. It’s like someone becomes Jesus and gets to keep that title forever. That’s not a contest.
Pay to win, not for amateurs
This is not a game as advertised, you put your photos up against “gurus” and there are challenges and duels to play, but you better be a pro if you want to win because it’s always a high level guru that somehow wins everything with over processed, mid photos. Let down of an app. There’s 3 tools to boost your photo exposure but you have to pay for them or beat a guru. There should be a section of guru vs guru and another for lower tiers. My photos are acclaimed by the big camera companies and still don’t win? lol okay
AI Farm - Beware
This app is an AI farm run out of Tel Aviv. All of your photos can be used to train AI generators. You can go into Settings and toggle off the “allow AI training” module, but only within 30 days, according to the terms. That explains why some of their contests are 10+ days long. They want to get people over that 30 day limit.
Once you have submitted photos to a contest, you cannot delete them until the contest is over.
I have deleted most of my photos and as soon as my submitted photos are out of contest status, I will delete them and close my account.
Once you have submitted photos to a contest, you cannot delete them until the contest is over.
I have deleted most of my photos and as soon as my submitted photos are out of contest status, I will delete them and close my account.
Pay to win.
This is a pay to win app. Don’t expect to win with good photos. You have to pay to play.
Ai farming
This app was great 7 years ago when I started using it. Then they continuously changed it until the challenges and voting was just pay to win. Actual talent and good photos don’t matter when winning comes down to using timing and paid exploits just to boost your rank. Now they’re selling all uploads to ai companies to train image generators and language models. This is the antithesis of art and they’re actively upholding a future where your own photos and art is amalgamated by an algorithm to make derivative trash. The team running this doesn’t value the legacy of art and are actively killing it.
Scam alert
I’ve had this app for over three years, I’ve been one contest away from obtaining the “Guru” and am filing a lawsuit as I strongly believe that there is an algorithm built into their app. They want you to spend the money to buy tokens so that you can get higher visibility during these competitions to help you win. If you pay for it, it will help you win… up until you attempt obtaining the highest level. Once you get close to that, they will literally just keep allowing you to purchase… I need one more top 100 ranking and habe been inside top 10 ranking for 5 days and last 2 days of competition I am all of a sudden 250 votes away feom top 100 and have paid for and maintained the exposure bonus the entire time. Absolute scam
Fake
Haven’t won anything after a year and the best aren’t actually winning
How Does the Voting Even Work?
I’ve been playing for a while and for the most part, it’s an okay game. Lately, however, when playing the Duels, I’ll submit a well composed, in focus shot only to lose to photos that any sensible person would delete. Example: a duel titled Close Up Birds. One winner was a bird with its back to the camera. Another was something on a power line, not sure what it was because it was so far away and out of focus it literally could have been anything. Just another example of “we can’t have nice things”.
Entered once and cant again
I entered the first two competitions and then I hoped that there was like a daily thing so I can get more coins because after those ended, I only earned 40 coins and that’s not enough to enter anything and there’s only like two or three things you can enter and then there were challenges you get later on but like I already lost all of the coins so I came and participate in any more competitions and I’m not buying with real money just to enter some competitions. This was supposed to be fun an chill.
Racist app
Racists with ego who maintain this platform … they steal your ideas and make their own at your expense.
Bots
Atleast in the beginning it feels like all ur competitors are just bots and it’s super easy to get like first place and everything. All the other peoples pfp look the same and nothing feels authentic.
Turbo must go away
No one likes the turbo feature. Good photos lose most of the time. It’s a rigged feature and you know it. And stop giving everyone the same garbage excuse saying that it’s setup to be fair. You may think it’s setup properly to work on your end, but we’re all telling you that better photos lose a lot of the time when voting. We’re all photographers so it’s not like we don’t know what a good photo looks like. We’ve been telling you that it was better before turbo but I can see that our opinions don’t matter. Just remember who the customer is. I’m done using my hard earned 250 coins to keep trying turbo after I lose. My team will suffer for it, but we all need to push back on this.
fun game but it freezes when i add a foto.
what the title says.
Now requires iOS 16
Not working on my iPad anymore, since it’s older.
Bot lobby
There aint no one just a bunch bots this app is fake i miss the first version of this app
Nothing works
Got back in this app after being off it for a little bit and nothing works anymore.
Can’t figure out
I have downloaded this app twice and can’t get anywhere with it.
Fun, but little to do with rewarding the best photography.
This app is 100% revenue focused at the expense of what it says its core offering of what should be fair competition of seeing who has the best photos.
The app has a lot of potential, but socializes awards to the person willing to spend the most (i.e. coins)
You’ll spend hours culling through and voting on photos. I truly believe they sandbag and restrict photos and votes no matter how good they are in favor of those people who are spending coins to boost their sub par photos.
Rewards are a joke. They’ll mention monetary awards, but that amount is only as it relates to their own coins you purchase to do things like swaps, boosts, etc. You don’t actually win anything of true value.
Turbos are an absolute joke. They have you guess between a series of two photos which one is the most popular and I cannot tell you how many times an absolute trash photo is the one. They even have the audacity to charge you 250 coins for this horrible benefit.
Again, I think the app has a lot of potential - but I really feel the product vision is not geared towards you as the photographer.
Inconsistent, unfair, shady, untrustworthy.
The app has a lot of potential, but socializes awards to the person willing to spend the most (i.e. coins)
You’ll spend hours culling through and voting on photos. I truly believe they sandbag and restrict photos and votes no matter how good they are in favor of those people who are spending coins to boost their sub par photos.
Rewards are a joke. They’ll mention monetary awards, but that amount is only as it relates to their own coins you purchase to do things like swaps, boosts, etc. You don’t actually win anything of true value.
Turbos are an absolute joke. They have you guess between a series of two photos which one is the most popular and I cannot tell you how many times an absolute trash photo is the one. They even have the audacity to charge you 250 coins for this horrible benefit.
Again, I think the app has a lot of potential - but I really feel the product vision is not geared towards you as the photographer.
Inconsistent, unfair, shady, untrustworthy.
Expensive
This game is fun to a point. The teams always encourage you to be competitive and I’ve been kicked from several teams for no reason or because I posted a vertical picture or some terrible reason. It’s also expensive to buy boosts. I enjoyed the app for abit, but then it got to a point where I couldn’t win cause some person who used AI to get a good pic. Not many people even see my photos to begin with unless I use every boost imaginable, but it barely helps.
Turbo is awful
Turbo is a complete crapshoot. I used to love Gurushots, have played since 2018, I’ve won two comps and am a Guru, but turbo killed it. Finally had to delete the app.
Reset link not working iOS 18.2
Hadn’t logged in for awhile.
Would love to access my account, however the reset link sent just asks me to sign in; cannot sign in because it won’t recognize my password or let me reset. Frustrating.
Would love to access my account, however the reset link sent just asks me to sign in; cannot sign in because it won’t recognize my password or let me reset. Frustrating.
Why Did the Game Change?
I loved this game a few years ago and used to play it constantly and then just ran out of time and space on my phone. Now it is boring. The limitation on entry of challenges makes the game stale. I don’t see this helping get my pictures out like it once did
Expensive Pastime
When I first started playing this a couple months ago I really enjoyed it. But they have either changed the game or the algorithm is intentionally set to make it fun in the beginning and then as the competition increases they start making in hard to get coins. Almost all games increase in difficulty that is to be expected. But this particular game took away several features that allowed me to earn coins while also increasing in difficulty. The turbo feature is a huge rip off as it seems to be set to make you lose intentionally so you are tempted to pay for additional try’s. I have much more to say about that feature but that would difficult to cram into this review. The free boost seems to show up in the middle of the night when everyone is usually sleeping then in the morning it prompts you to pay for it because you missed it. I spent $15 in the app this morning and the few measly things you get are gone within a few challenges. I would really enjoy the gale if I didn’t feel I was being robbed. It makes me sad that I have to give it up because it is not just set up as pay to play, it is set up as pay exorbitantly to play.
FAKE
I ranked high the first time I played so I got super excited I wanted to see if it’s real.
I logged out and used a different account, and saw THE SAME EXACT contests after it just ended on my first account. All the pictures were also the same from “other” accounts. Same ranking and everything. I submitted a screenshot of a picture of a table from Amazon and I ranked 3rd place.
I logged out and used a different account, and saw THE SAME EXACT contests after it just ended on my first account. All the pictures were also the same from “other” accounts. Same ranking and everything. I submitted a screenshot of a picture of a table from Amazon and I ranked 3rd place.
First time using this app
Nothing is loading I was 3rd in a flash challenge and not I can see anything on the app at all
Exorbitant charges through ApplePay
This app appears to be a game, but while playing, they are charging hundreds of dollars per month to your Apple account. My Apple account auto bills my credit card, which in turn auto debits my bank account. I don’t often look at these statements. When I did, I found they were billing me multiple times per day!
For “4 Keys” $9.99, “8 Keys” $19.99, “6 Swaps” $4.99, “12 Swaps” $9.99, “Premium Exhibition Bundle” $14.99, etc. Looking back over the last years, some months GuruShots billed me over $800.00 USD in a single month!!!!! It’s not clear in the game they are charging you for all this activity!!!!
Be VERY careful how you use this App!!!!
For “4 Keys” $9.99, “8 Keys” $19.99, “6 Swaps” $4.99, “12 Swaps” $9.99, “Premium Exhibition Bundle” $14.99, etc. Looking back over the last years, some months GuruShots billed me over $800.00 USD in a single month!!!!! It’s not clear in the game they are charging you for all this activity!!!!
Be VERY careful how you use this App!!!!
Freeeeeeze
Freeze crash, either way…. Useless
Freeze
The app getting freeze all the time. Fix it!!!
App doesn’t work
When you go back into the app nothing works
App freezes as soon as it’s opened
Impossible to use this app as it freezes the setting it’s opened, I can’t even log in to delete my account 🤦🏽♀️ super disappointed as I was so excited about this app!!
Freezing
I don’t understand why when i open the app nothing happens it just freezes and happens all the time!
Froze on first use
I downloaded today and joined a challenge. Nine some coins and the app now opens to a claim screen showing my best photo, but it won’t go past this and I can’t select anything to navigate anywhere off this page. So it is now unusable.
Don’t even bother
The app doesn’t even work. I love the concept but it’s executed so poorly that it becomes infuriating. I’ve barely gotten past the first “tutorial” screen without the app completely crashing. And sure, you can try to delete it and reinstall or restart the app altogether. But it’ll crash within the first two screens without fail. Don’t even bother.
Freezing
It’s a really cool concept, however the app kept freezing on me everytime I opened it. I had to restart my phone to unfreeze the app. Not sure if others have this same issue. But it was a dealbreaker for me to delete it.
Keeps Freezing
I just downloaded the app today. It keeps freezing up and not letting me click on anything when I’m in the app. Sad because it looks like it could be a lot of fun. Instead it’s just frustrating.
Good app, freezes constantly!
I enjoy this app greatly but it freezes almost everytime I open it and stays that way for a great deal of time! Makes it nearly impossible to use.
They want you to spend your money.
I was playing this new game for a few years , and then noticed that even the best photos don’t even win a #1 spot for advance ment. Also some of those Gurus III and above use their same old 277 all star rated photo with 58 guru picks in every game.Through research discovered that the photos that have a better chance of winning buy all the coins to gain boosts, swaps, and fills and then also have a bunch of guru friends that make sure to vote on the photo.
Beware you get penalized if let your exposure run out or if you vote on consecutive photos to fill your exposure to the max. If you like consecutive photos you get a warning, why can’t that be done? Just what if every photo consecutively is great? Those turbos some kind of joke…in many cases a very horrible photo has more votes than a great photo IMO.
It’s surprising how flower photos and regular old beat up winding street to no ware photos wins the duels. Some photos have a bunch of likes but also at the same time not even an all star rating. So many AI photos. An AFK feature would be great for players that sleep.I’ve deleted mine.
Beware you get penalized if let your exposure run out or if you vote on consecutive photos to fill your exposure to the max. If you like consecutive photos you get a warning, why can’t that be done? Just what if every photo consecutively is great? Those turbos some kind of joke…in many cases a very horrible photo has more votes than a great photo IMO.
It’s surprising how flower photos and regular old beat up winding street to no ware photos wins the duels. Some photos have a bunch of likes but also at the same time not even an all star rating. So many AI photos. An AFK feature would be great for players that sleep.I’ve deleted mine.
Bots bots bots
Maybe there was a time when this app was about skill and community. At this time, terrible photos make their way up the ranks because of the gamified microtransactions of the app. It’s pay to win, essentially and duels are infested by bots.
Somewhat of a joke
It’s impossible to get to guru without spending money. The turbos are a joke as most of the time the photos that are more popular or out of focus very poor quality photos that look like they were taken by a child. Could be a fun app, but instead, it’s just another money grab.
Good idea; terrible execution
The idea of the app is great: a place where photographers can share and compete with their photographs.
The execution of the app is horrendous: it is the largest pay to play platform I have seen. Great photography hidden behind brick Nokia cell phone quality photos because they paid to boost their photo.
The ranking system is inconsistent and lacks proper safeguards from individuals blindly voting for their photo to get a boost.
I’d suggest a swiping like voting system. Left for no vote, right for vote, and uses get points for swiping either way. Swiped too many in one direction? Provide an captcha type test to prevent abuse of the system. This way all photos are being seen, and a proper voting system is instilled. Will it work? Who knows but it’s better than what is going on currently.
The execution of the app is horrendous: it is the largest pay to play platform I have seen. Great photography hidden behind brick Nokia cell phone quality photos because they paid to boost their photo.
The ranking system is inconsistent and lacks proper safeguards from individuals blindly voting for their photo to get a boost.
I’d suggest a swiping like voting system. Left for no vote, right for vote, and uses get points for swiping either way. Swiped too many in one direction? Provide an captcha type test to prevent abuse of the system. This way all photos are being seen, and a proper voting system is instilled. Will it work? Who knows but it’s better than what is going on currently.
just full of bots
im pretty sure it’s all just bots because no way my photos are winning EVERY TIME. plus everyone’s pfp is the same shot of their head, everyone has a simple “paul” “mark” “simon” username. it just feels so weird.
Very Disappointing!!
This “game” isn’t intended for photographers who actually want a genuine ranking app for sharing and competing with other photographers. It is completely filled with people who don’t use the app properly and just use it as another social media platform. It has become a money grab app.
It would be cool if there was an app almost just like this with a better judging system and only allowed photographers rookies or gurus, and a disciplinary system for people who aren’t actually going along with what the app or specific challenges were for.
It’s pretty addicting but I am sick of people beating me with “off topic” photos and if I’m being honest, horribly shot and edited photos.
It would be cool if there was an app almost just like this with a better judging system and only allowed photographers rookies or gurus, and a disciplinary system for people who aren’t actually going along with what the app or specific challenges were for.
It’s pretty addicting but I am sick of people beating me with “off topic” photos and if I’m being honest, horribly shot and edited photos.
Have to buy coins
I love the concept of this app, but in order to enter a competition you have to use coins. You’re only given 50 or 100 coins to start. Each competition is 50 coins. If you don’t win the competition, you don’t win anymore coins. If you don’t win, you have to buy them. I wish you could earn coins in some other way. I’d be on the app all the time if I could.
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Sentiment summary
86%
Positive (4-5★)
4%
Neutral (3★)
10%
Negative (1-2★)