Not all of SMG4's numerous changes of the standard quo can satisfy long-time viewers, which is why it garnered enough for its own page here:
- In general, the series' transition from primarily being a Mario parody to becoming more of an original series with Mario elements has been a major gripe among long-time fans since a large portion of the fanbase only watches for the copyrighted characters. 2019 and onward have brought a series of changes that have gradually stripped the series of its parody elements. As the series had largely remained the same before when these changes started, this shift was met with hostility. After WOTFI 2022 and especially IT'S GOTTA BE PERFECT, fans concluded that this shift was largely happening both out of fears of the series getting a DMCA takedown and GLITCH wanting to make SMG4 as original as possible, which many fans feel strips the series of its soul.
- Some feel that the series shifting from comedy to dramedy following the Waluigi Arc falls under this. The biggest argument for this is that the series' randomness and humor made videos both entertaining and fresh and that the shift in tone made videos not as funny or interesting to watch.
- On July 8, 2017, TheAwesomeMario channel was briefly renamed to "MORE SMG4". However, this drew major criticism from fans as it essentially put an end to the Defictionalization of it being Mario's actual channel. So unpopular was this decision that the MORE SMG4 video was quickly deleted and the channel was reverted to TheAwesomeMario within an hour of the change. The description, though, continues to say that Mario got drunk from too much spaghetti and gave possession of it to SMG4.
- While Guards N' Retards merging with SMG4 was, and still is, well-received, some fans of the former have lamented that Chris and Swagmaster were the only aspects of their old series to make the jump over, leaving the rest of their cast and their setting behind.
- Starting with SMG4 in "Mario's Illegal Operation", the series started gradually making a push for having voice acting as a regular thing for characters to add more emotion and have jokes hit faster and easier
. This came in the form of utilizing Voice Grunting using real VAs, fully voicing characters that didn't have it before, or introducing newcomers with a voice from the start. As episodes like "The Plumber Problem" were already divisive for voice acting beforehand, along with it being seen as the series becoming too "professional", this move was met with a mixed to negative reception.- Starting with "Mario and the Backrooms", Uberduck.ai was swiftly integrated into the series formula, no doubt to further the number of characters that could be "voice acted". Fans have expressed annoyance at Uberduck replacing the Voice Grunting and sentence mixing (combining pieces of voice clips to make new lines) used for many characters prior, with the biggest complaint being the lack of emotion in the voices like the other TTS voices have. The fact that Uberduck is capable of sounding more realistic than it does in the series only makes those who know this more frustrated since the problem could be easily remedied if the crew took the time to make it work. Its use for Mario and Luigi in particular, each boasting a massive library of voice clips, was taken especially poorly. Uberduck usage started slowing down by 2023 though, eventually disappearing altogether after Uberduck's character AI voice feature was removed, alleviating this complaint.
- "War of the Fat Italians" shift from a fun "Mario vs SMG4" event to an all-cast vehicle to end arcs has become one of the most criticized decisions in terms of the channel's structure. WOTFI 2018 worked well largely because it was a genuine shock back then to see the event ending an arc that had already surprised many fans through its existence alone, and the event otherwise kept the same format WOTFI always used. However, WOTFI 2018's success as an arc ender led to that becoming the event's new standard starting in 2020 (with only 2019 not having an arc ended by a WOTFI event), so the shock and surprise value of its first use was already impossible to replicate. After WOTFI 2020's success, the event was changed further by having the entire cast take part rather than just the two fat Italians, rendering the event In Name Only. Fan discourse rose greatly once "The Meme Games" was established in 2022 and the fanbase saw it as a suitable replacement as an all-cast WOTFI-esque event that can end subplots... only for the Lawsuit arc to abruptly start and end during the normal WOTFI period with the namesake event, continuing its increasingly divisive status as an arc-ender for the third year in a row in what many saw as being blatantly engineered. Nowadays, interest in WOTFI has dwindled greatly because of its handling, something reflected in WOTFI 2022's views. Fans have speculated that the shift happened because WOTFI 2019 - the last WOTFI to use the original format - didn't get as many views as WOTFI 2018 and 2020. This cycle seems to have finally ended with WOTFI 2023, which is not only not part of an arc, but is also the first WOTFI in the series to completely change the formula, going from simple challenges to a heist adventure with choices being made by the fans themselves.
- Meggy's human redesign was by far the most polarizing change yet. Apart from being seen as wholly unnecessary, many felt that turning her human made her less interesting of a character. Another minor complaint was that she was no longer animated as well as she used to be because of it.
- The decision to rebrand the SMG4 channel as "SMG4 // Glitch Productions" proved to be rather unpopular. It did little to pacify the fears of fans that SMG4 would eventually abandon the series in favor of Meta Runner. Some even went as far to say that SMG4 was going corporate, similar to Smosh, and speculate that he and the team wanted to fully rename to Glitch Productions, but kept SMG4 for the brand recognition. A common consensus that the fanbase has come to is that he probably should've made a different channel for Glitch Productions as he did for Hobo Bros. This was rectified in August of 2020 with the “GLITCH” channel becoming the place for all "Glitch Productions" content, with the channel's original creation date implying that the initial change was always meant to be temporary.
- Some videos have had their names changed after their upload. While some changes are understandable, like "The Festival of the Year" becoming the less "narmy" sounding "The Grand Festival", others haven't been as well-received, such as "Steve VS Smash Bros" being changed to the more generic "Steve Fights Everyone" and "The Corn Trip" becoming "Mario's Corn Trip", making that video more misleading than it already was with its thumbnail(s), among others. Many have also noticed that changes since 2020 tend to involve including Mario's name if it wasn't there before, leading some to believe that these changes are largely being done now to game the YouTube algorithm.
- While a few classic characters like the Old Man and Gourmet Guy continue to appear, they were given 3D models to fit in with the channel's new "dominantly GMod" style despite the fans preferring their original 2D looks. The criticism may have been what caused Gourmet Guy to go back to using his sprite in a few episodes, but then they ended up making the same mistake with the Old Man.
- The ending of the Lawsuit Arc resulted in SMG4, SMG3, Bob, and Fishy Boopkins being forced to change their designs permanently. While some fans were fine with this, others lamented that four iconic characters with iconic designs, two of which had been with the series for over a decade, were changed out of fears of the channel getting a DMCA for real, with some coining the redesigns a transitional sign for the channel. Fans also pointed out that Mario and Luigi's continued use would put the series more in danger of getting taken down, nullifying the point the redesigns were supposed to have. Boopkins' redesign got the most flak for being rather off-putting and unfinished-looking. Tellingly, even the crew agreed with the fanbase, and most of the designs were changed again not even half a year later.
- To a lesser extent, Saiko's redesign in "The Meme Games 2022" was also seen by some as rather unnecessary, given that she was one of the characters who had an original design from the start, although others believe that her redesign helped her fit in better with the cartoony art style of the main cast, feeling that her original design was a bit too realistic-looking.
- The Remastered64 series, which recreates older videos (particularly from the pre-2016 era), has attracted criticism from a vocal minority of fans who believe that too much was changed from the original videos; common complaints include too much Gmod over Mario 64, replacing copyrighted music, and altering the dialogue due to Values Dissonance.
- Tari's sudden voice change in "The Day My Arm Went Psycho". Celeste Notley-Smith was replaced by Lottie Bourne as the voice of Tari without a heads-up from Glitch Productions, and Jasmine Yang, one of the writers for the series and other GLITCH Production shows, forgot to notify her, later revealing on Discord that it was a genuine mistake on her part that she took full responsibility for. Regardless, this has garnered extreme backlash from the fans for being such a disrespectful move to Notley-Smith and her nearly 6-year run on the show as well as voicing Tari throughout the entirety of her own series. To make matters worse, Robyn Barry-Cotter, the voice of SMG2 and a close friend of Celeste's, was outraged at GLITCH, called them out for it, and later resigned as the voice of SMG2, resulting in yet another character needing to be recast; if he were to ever appear again.
