>Proto-Screenwave Era (Season 11, 2017): 144 (Power Rangers) - 156 (Earthbound)
The Screenslobs began working on Cinemassacre one at a time. Big Ryan started working there years earlier. It's unclear when exactly they started to get more control, but in 2016 Tony was brought on to start editing videos, and in 2017 the other guys started editing and being noticed in other behind the scenes roles, and eventually on-camera roles. At this point, everyone thought they were just more of James and Mike's friends. Also in this era, Mike and Bootsy was cancelled, which we would soon learn was due to bad blood between the two, indicating the loss of a guy who was previously a significant presence. The fact that this coincides with the rise of the Screenslobs is of interest, but the precise relationship between these things is unconfirmed. I should also note that the Earthbound episode is technically the premiere of Season 12, but since it's one of the last times James has given a shit, and the episode immediately after is when the Slobs really started doing a lot more, I'm putting Earthbound with Season 11. It just took him forever to beat the game on account of being an RPG and him having no time.
This Season is when he clearly starts doing stuff to try to appeal to the internet. Truthers think that the slobs got more influence partway through the season, but perhaps it was even before the Season. James never showed much interest in Power Rangers before, but got really into it so he could release a few videos, including an AVGN on it, just before the reboot movie. He did a Sonic '06 episode which was actually real complaints about the game, but then later in the season he did an episode of all the meme complaints about the game that you'd get from Game Grumps or whatever, if you never actually played the game. It's almost as if he did one real episode, then Big Ryan or Justin "Crusty Justy" Silverman told him to do one that's more of a "crowd pleaser."
>Early Screenwave Era (Season 12, 2018): 157 (Dirty Harry) - 164 (Home Alone)
Big Ryan and his Screenslobs begin to make more and more overt appearances on the channel, which coincides with them doing more work on AVGN. It would take time to realize just how much work, but eventually it became clear that James had become practically just an actor, with the Slobs not just editing, but even writing, which becomes terribly obvious as time goes on. This is when the Slobs start Rental Reviews, a show basically about them with James standing in the background and occasionally going "Yep. Mmmhmm."
>Peak Screenwave Era (Seasons 13-15, 2019-2021): 165 (Chronologically Confused about Kingdom Hearts) - 200 (Every LJN game)
The Kingdom Hearts episode begins with AVGN/James admitting he doesn't know anything about Kingdom Hearts and has never played any of the games. He then goes on to read a script by Kieran about how the timeline is confusing. Kieran, upon quitting a few years later, said he tried to warn Big Ryan that this was a bad idea, but Big Ryan made him do it. Episodes from this era not only have a bunch of episodes about stuff James obviously doesn't know anything about, but also has The Slobs guest-star in multiple episodes. None of these episodes are well liked. Episode 200 is a three parter because Big Ryan accidentally sold three times as many ads as he was supposed to, so he had to force James to make "Episode 200" three episodes. The episode is about AVGN hiring a guy to make a game (even though there are already two official AVGN games that exist in universe) and he realizes that due to technical and budget reasons, making a game is hard, so he should forgive LJN and not make fun of them. Like the Mega Man episode, the metaphor for his own series is very blatant.
A couple of months before Episode 200, James released a "Behind the Scenes" video. He had done this before, Episode 102 was a "Making of" video, and Cinemassacre 200 was basically a documentary about himself, for just a few examples. But in this one he decided that he was finally going to address some complaints "of the assholish variety." This backfired massively. He previously never addressed any criticism, or even worse, attacks, such as when SJWs attacked him for not wanting to watch Ghostbusters 2016. But now he finally spoke up, and it was against people who were essentially just telling him that the people he hired sucked at their jobs. In the process, he also revealed many silly tech decisions which lead to silly creative decisions, and this lead to far more criticisms of the assholish variety.
But then it turned out those fans of the assholish variety were right, as that year they marketed that Monster Madness was coming back and it was gonna be in the classic format again. Then on October 1st those fans of the assholish variety immediately noticed the video was plagiarized. They managed to get access to the second and found that was plagiarized as well. Busty Justy, essentially the manager of Cinemassacre by this point, looked into it and found they were all fucking plagiarized. The Slob that did it, TobyFromSmackTheBoobies' friend Newt Wallen, was fired. Justin and Big Ryan made Caveman Kieran re-do all 31 videos, with only a day to do each one (minus one or two days it took them to catch the problem). The poor Caveman never got paid, as Big Ryan considered it part of his regular duties, even though it obviously wasn't.
>The Secret Slobs Era (Seasons 16-Present, 2022-Present): 201 (The Last Ninja) - 215 (What's the Best Castlevania?)
Following Monster Madness 2021, which came right at the perfect time to make the fans of the assholish variety even more energized, it became impossible for James to continue ignoring how bad the Screenslobs were, and just keep saying anyone who tried to warn him was just of the assholish variety. At the beginning of 2022, he released a video announcing that the channel was going to try to get back to basics, focusing on nostalgia. He also said that the Slobs (of course, he didn't call them that) would be stepping to other projects or going behind the scenes. He released a few non-AVGN videos like this, and things seemed like they might be improving. But The Slobs were still writing and editing AVGN, so really, nothing got better. At one point Kieran, the guy who was by then writing and editing AVGN, quit, and some new Slob, Sean, replaced him. Nothing really got better. A couple of episodes during this era do a gimmick of flashing back to the past, with segments being in the style of old AVGN episodes. They're fairly accurate, indicating that they see the difference, but think this new era is actually better. Episode 214, My Horse Prince, was quickly regarded by many as the worst episode ever. Episode 215 is the most recent, and it's just him talking about other Castlevania games that he didn't talk about as much before, because he has no nostalgia for them. It's almost as if Big Ryan told him to talk about Symphony of the Night because it's popular, so he says it's good, but he likes Castlevania IV best because it's the one he actually grew up with, and Symphony of the Night is so different.
I'd say Mega Man is the point that works best as an ending. It's him admitting he's pretty much done. But you could argue it's fine up to perhaps the Robocop episode. The one after that is Sonic '06 Part 2, where he went back to do a meme game with more meme complaints that he forgot to say in his first video (where he did more accurate commentary). The Screenslobs started some time shortly before this episode, but it seems like their involvement was gradual, so when they started it wasn't that significant.