Being one of the oldest and most popular Lets Players on YouTube, there is bound to be some aspects of the channel that are divisive.
Meta
- From late-2013 onward, there's an increasing number of fans who feel that Mark overacts a lot more than he used to, and think that his earlier videos have more genuine reactions and much calmer commentary. Others think he's better than ever, or that he's as good as he ever was. The fact that for a time he was editing in images and words into his videos to make more jokes instead of just relying solely on game footage just made this worse. Thankfully, this is much less pronounced than in most fandoms; most agree that Mark is more or less the same.
- Mark's tendency to work on multiple playthroughs at once, sometimes up to four or five alongside whatever non-video game related videos he decides to upload. Some are fine with letting Mark do what he wants, others who become invested in a particular series sometimes wish he would focus on a smaller number of games, and complete them before moving on to something else. This became more divisive starting late into The New '10s, which saw Mark beginning to drop playthroughs without warning in favor of other games, especially ones played during Twitch streams with Bob and Wade. Such games include Manual Samuel and Oxygen Not Included among others. Many remained okay with this while others wish he would at least make a conclusive playthrough before dropping a series.
- Nowadays, there has been some controversy about his legitimacy after OutMine hacked the channel in 2016 and leaked his monthly income for November 2015 ($665,820.16), in relation to the many charities he has encouraged his fanbase to participate in during his live-streams. Some defend him on the grounds that it's his money and he's rightfully earned it, thus he can do whatever he wants with it, while others believe that he's a hypocrite that donates very little of what he actually could be donating, while at the same time pretending to be humble and preaching constantly about how we all can be better human beings.
- CLOAK. Upon the announcement
of the clothing lineup in October 2018, fans were heavily split on whether Mark and Jack were simply trying to make their own comfortable clothing line and making a business together in case YouTube stopped working out, or if the whole thing was coming out of nowhere, with accusations of them selling out. The prices were a huge point of contention, with people split on whether they were justified prices for the comfort advertised on them, or if it was a ripoff for clothes that were extremely simplistic in design and similar to clothes that could be found in any store for a fourth of the price. - Mark doing weekly livestreams with Bob and Wade on Twitch starting in 2019. Many enjoy this since Mark, Bob and Wade playing together always leads to great content and the streams are much longer than Mark's normal videos. Others, however, dislike the effect this had on the YouTube channel, namely having many daily videos simply being edited and reuploaded sections of said streams, which can lead to a dry spell of new content for those who already watched the streams beforehand. The fact that they are also uploaded anywhere from days to weeks after the original stream also means that people have enough time to find them and watch them in full anyway.
- His decision to publicly delete his 3:00 AM at The Krusty Krab video during "3 Scary Games Live" as a promotion of Unus Annus. There's one group of people who are fine with the decision, saying that Mark has a right to do what he wants with the videos on his channel. Meanwhile, there's the second group of people who disagree with the decision and his philosophy that nothing is truly permanent on the internet, stating that one of the most important aspects of the internet is that everything is saved for future generations that weren't alive when the original content was created. Then there's a third group of people who, while agreeing with Mark's "nothing is permanent" philosophy that Unus Annus is based on, disagree with his decision to let it bleed into the main channel, as it makes his promise that the two would remain separate entities feel disingenuous.
- Mark's playstyle, where he has a tendency to mess around sometimes or miss things in the story or controls. Initially, people were unanimously on his side, attributing any screw ups resulting from this to his goofy nature and finding it entertaining, especially if he still pulls of a victory without knowing all the mechanics or controls. However, it started becoming divisive late into The New '10s, with chief offenders being Prey (2017), Doom Eternal, and Minecraft. Many continue defend him on the grounds that Mark can play however he wants and that its funny to watch him (and his friends) goof around. Others find it frustrating when Mark misses crucial information, both concerning the story and the gameplay, that make his playthroughs harder to watch.
- Much before hand, the revelation that the reason Ryan and Matt stopped working with Mark was due to Mark treating them less like friends and more like employees. Some (in particular Super Mega fans) absolustely began to criticize and slam Mark, labeling him as very arrogant and how he had "changed" and had made the apology post for sympathy, while others found Ryan and Matt's lack of response to be frustrating and showing how they were unwilling to let bygones despite Mark admitting fault. The fact the whole incident seemed to be a reason Mark barely if at all collaborates with the Grumps anymore or wasn't asked to join them on their tour adds fuel to the fire. This of course has slowly become mediated by the fact Ryan and Matt have mentioned Mark in their videos in rather positive ways, more or less the three boys have mended, but are focusing more on their separated projects.
Lets Plays
- His Let's Play of Until Dawn was this, with many fans of the game claiming that Mark was not giving it the respect they felt it deserved, leading to many a flame war in the comments between them and the people who think Mark was simply having fun with a game that he himself has said reminds him of a campy eighties horror movie.
- Taken further in a later video, whereupon, after starting to warm up to the game and taking it more seriously, he gets Ashley, arguably one of the characters he most liked, killed by opening the trapdoor. Mark declares he's replaying the game to fix his mistakes. The fanbase exploded, with a significant portion of the comments declaring intent to unsubscribe if he goes through with it, while others were actually relieved that he might take the game more seriously.
- Mark came under fire by fans for Episode 5 of SOMA, where he ultimately decided to pull the plug on Robin because he wouldn't want to be in that situation if it were him. Fans are divided between agreeing with Mark's decision and defending it, or berating him for making a decision on someone else's life without taking into account Robin's choice. And that's not even getting started on the ethics of killing a human-copied mind in a machine...
- His Undertale Lets Play:
- Even before he started, many people were happy he was going to play it while others hated it because his popularity would "ruin it".
- Mark's voice acting. Some found his choice of voices hilarious and refreshing compared to the common interpretations of the characters while others hated it either because he was exaggerating them to the point of being annoying, because he was trying too hard to be funny and not taking the game seriously, taking a long time to decide on the voices and halting the gameplay to do so (Sans being the biggest example), or because he didn't use the common fanon voices.
- Once he stopped uploading after Part 2, many assumed he gave up after the negative reception of his voices, which had some defending him and others complaining. Come December, Mark tweeted he couldn't do it due to time constraints and that he wanted to play genocide, but would make a pacifist playthrough first. This created two more broken bases between those who believed Mark vs those who thought Mark lied since he'd played many other games since Part 2's upload and, those who were happy he would finally be playing the game again vs those that hate how Mark wouldn't be playing the way he wanted.
- Mark's announcement in February 2016 that he officially quit the Lets Play entirely. Those who were for it felt that Mark was entitled to play what he wanted, that he had understandable reasons for dropping the series, and that in the case of the criticism, the more toxic members of the fanbase had brought it on themselves. Those against it were disappointed that Mark was dropping the series after maintaining near-radio silence on it for months apart from jabs at it, feel that his reasons for stopping were both confusing and nonsensical. Mark stating his more in-depth reasons on why in October 2016 and his subsequent decision to play Undertale again via livestream with Tyler calmed the majority of the fans.
- Mark's attitude toward the game and the fanbase after quitting the first playthrough. Many found his various jabs and jokes concerning the fans and the game funny and, in the case of those who turned Mark off from the game, well-deserved. Others, however, saw the jokes as being petty and overly critical toward the fanbase and Undertale (similar to Minx, though not nearly as bad), and felt he was generalizing the fanbase based on the more toxic members.
- Rage game playthroughs such as Super Mario Maker, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, I Am Bread and Pogostuck. There are many who think they are among the funniest videos on the channel and enjoy Mark slowly losing his mind while playing them. Others believe that Mark can get too angry when having a hard time with them to the point that it long stops being funny, especially with his later playthroughs. His decision to stop playing them entirely was near-unanimously accepted and put these arguments to rest for the most part.
- His Fran Bow LP started very well but over time got more and more divisive, in particular with how Mark's exaggerated voice overs took the LP. Either you think his silly voices and head shaking are hilarious or very annoying/forced and being out of character.
- Prey (2017) became the new bane after Undertale. Considering he recycled the pre-order shotgun which not only could easily be upgraded, but also turned into a Death Ray, he furthermore skips over most lore in the game, doesn't realize how to make Neuromods until the fourth video while complaining about the lack of them, claims to be the sneaking type yet run and shoot into almost every room he enters, skips through tutorials, only to then get stuck with basic control problems and in general seems very rushed and inattentive. Pretty much every Prey video is a Flame War between the fans that defend him on playing however he likes, attributing the incidents to his goofy nature while the other half is frustrated and highly irritated, especially considering that Mark is usually known for being thorough and taking his time to properly explore and calculate.
- There has been a small split after Mark's third Welcome to the Game 2 livestream for his highly controversial tirade launched at the game and its developer at the end, with a major breaking point for most fans being his comment that he hoped the developer was happy for all the sales he pushed their way. One side stood with Mark because of the countless hours he's played it and the director's snarky tweets during them while the other side believed Mark was in the wrong for his comment and his rant. However, a majority of the fanbase agrees that Mark was wrong to make the comment and he may have went too far, but the majority of the rant about the game's difficulty was justified. Slightly mitigated after Mark issued an apology later that day, but some are still upset because he didn't apologize for the sales comment and it felt slightly backhanded.
- Mark's solo Lets Play of Minecraft started out near-universally anticipated since it was a highly requested series, but quickly grew divisive as it continued on. Mark choosing not to look up anything or read comments. Either it allows Mark to challenge himself and make things more rewarding rather than spoon-feeding the answers to him, or it drags out the series as Mark has no idea how to do many things or what to do to get to certain items or areas. note Many justify this due to the above choice and feel that it is natural for Mark to not know what he's doing. They also feel that these moments tend to be the funniest parts of the videos. Detractors feel he should not be having so much trouble since most of his mistakes are things that are either common knowledge or happen out of sheer negligence, pointing out that he has played the game for years beforehandnote . They feel that these moments tend to make the series much harder to watch.
- With how Mark's Let's Play of West of Loathing is almost universally considered to be one of his best Let's Plays ever, his playthrough of Shadows Over Loathing had a lot to live up to. Whereas Mark read every piece of dialogue in WOL, including the infamous Shaggy Dog Cave, he tended to skip a lot of them in SOL, which detractors cited as making it seem like he had less passion for the game. On the other hand, some fans don't mind this, citing that he still pays attention to the important details and that he's clearly having fun with the game nonetheless.
