Question I put forth to you my fellow Escapists, which of the two genre's do you prefer:
Steampunk or Cyberpunk?

Steampunk is basically the idea that people of the victorian era to the 50's thought the future was going to look like. Shitty WW1 planes and trains driving by steampowered robots holding mindray guns and space age lasers.
A few good movies of this genre:
-Sky Captain and that World of Tomorrow
-League of Extrodinary Gentlemen
-The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello

Games:
-Bioshock
-the Crimson Skies series

On the otherside you have the futureistic cyberpunk created by the generation around the time the internet first came out. It consited mainly of people 'jumping into' the internet and fighting epic computer battles with one another. Or just simply a robot army taking over and inslaving the human race.

Movies:
-The Matrix
-Johnny Mnemonic
-Ghost in the Shell
-Tron
-Robocop
-Terminator

So what do you like of each. Do you have a certain soft spot for one, or just hate them both? Also any recommendations.

Congratulations, Purple Rain. Never before have I seen a poll so agonisingly hard to decide on. Never. I love both like children but much like children I could never choose one over the other.

I have a huge soft spot for steampunk, and this poll really was a no-brainer for me. I must add I would never include "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" in any "list of good movies". Sky Captain was pretty fun tho. The movie Wild Wild West was about as bad as League, but it did contain some nice steampunk stuff.

Saskwach:
Congratulations, Purple Rain. Never before have I seen a poll so agonisingly hard to decide on. Never. I love both like children but much like children I could never choose one over the other.

But only one child must survive... pick the one without red hair.

Me, over long and excruciating nights (just then) I chose Steampunk. I like the art design and the some of the consepts. Sky Captain had a flying navy plane carrier and bird robots. Neato.
Plus I forgot to mention another game: Fallout. It's Steampunk set in an apocalptic wasteland.

Ray guns:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKQDqCvGjhM

Personally I wouldn't call Fallout steampunk, I'd say it's retro-futuristic. I find the "steam"-part to be essential to the genre, and if not steam then a lot of brass and cogs.

A great indie steampunk game is Steam Brigade

Steampunk is all fair and good (loving of bioshock). BUT. Cyberpunk is my fav by far. I just loving seeing what people think the future is going to be like. Having weapons that look kinda like modern ones, but with twists and additions. Or completely new technology realized in a film or game. You know the mobile phone was invented because they wanted to copy the communicators from star trek... weird huh.

Steam punk. It has that gritty grungy sort of look that fits into actual punk. I m not a fan of the whole Cyber thing except for The Matrix. They tend to be in more sub-par cheesy action films like the Terminator series which i despise.

Post-punk the coolest though Robert Smith = Music god with godlike hair.

In the end I've chosen steampunk for its similarities to China Mieville's Bas Lag novels. That man is a god amongst punks.

I prefer the freaky steampunk over the ... 'cold' cyberpunk. I just don't like all those metallic colours and neon blue all over.

For the anime lubbers: Ergo Proxy is a philosophical mystery anime set in the future, and whereas the 'domes' are mainly cyberpunk, anything surviving in the wastelands around these domes are steampunk. Very neat to see (since it's in HD, too), just be prepared to think a lot. Or you'll just get lost in the confusing storyline, even when the series goes episodic for a while.

You forgot to mention that Final Fantasy was built on steampunk (medieval kingdoms, but with industrial revolution creations such as giant airships, trains, cannons, etc). If any game helped push steampunk into the mainstream, it was Final Fantasy.

Aesthetically Steampunk has a great deal of appeal, but many of the ideas predominant in decent Cyberpunk novels may yet happen. Beyond aesthetics, Steampunk is nothing more than idle fantasy.

I heartily recommend you all read William Gibson's Neuromancer. Basically every idea the Wachowski brothers had was ripped crudely from this novel (that, and from bastardising some of the concepts developed by the eminent French philosopher/critic Jean Baudrillard in his book Simulacra and Simulation), first published in 1984. The society portrayed in this book may yet come in to being and it is the most interesting speculative novel of the future I have ever read. In fact, Gibson is the author credited for single-handedly pioneering Cyberpunk and it is his ideas, set out in Neuromancer that set the tone for the sci-fi sub-genre.

Japanese incarnations of either genre (as far as I have seen) are just an excuse for prepubescent teens to fight each other in Gundam style Mech suits. There is almost certainly Eastern work which proves that statement wrong, I am yet to find it though.

Tying this all back to the topic: Read Gibson's work, it will convince you toward the Cyberpunk side of this argument (that said, Gibson has written a novel which classifies as Steampunk, based on the idea that the British Empire implemented Babbage's 'Difference Engine' a mechanical computer invented in the 19th century which ensures British global dominance - think computerised artillery before WW1 - for another century at least, I just can't remember the title).

Long story short: Read Gibson.

:edit: Cyberpunk only has 2 votes? wtf...

Cyber-punk all the way :)

Just because I love both Blade Runner and Deus Ex hehe

I'll have to go with steampunk on this. I'd sooner have a large clanking army of rube goldberg machines than a bunch of nerdy hackers. I enjoy steampunk's very adventure-focused and optimistic tone over the cliched dystopias of cyberpunk. That and I've got a ridiculous love of art-deco and victorian architecture.

Something wrong with this poll...

Including me, four people have said cyberpunk so far, yet it only has two votes. People are forgetting to vote.

And steampunk is good, but also tends toward "Evil Marching Band" when overused.

- J

Add to the steam-punk category Steamboy.

Okay. So, both Cyberpunk AND Steampunk are awesome.
But I admit, my true love is for Steampunk. I dare anyone to find a webcomic as good as Girl Genius, for example (yes yes, "gaslamp fantasy", whatever. It's steampunk.) Zeppelins are freaking badass. Steam and clockwork engines are incredibly cool. And steampunk can be unique, interesting and painfully awesome without being dark and "edgy" at the same time, something Cyberpunk generally has had some problems with.

I dare anyone to find a single example of true, full-out steampunk that sucks. I can't think of one. At all. It's way too rare, and I feel that steampunk should become more common, but not TOO common, or the common rabble (the same type who plays Halo 3, or finds Family Guy to be the epitomy of humor) will ruin it for the edgy, hardcore fans like me.
...No, that wasn't serious. Good god, people, grow a sense of humor. [/Pre-emptive retaliation]

It's got to be cyberpunk for me, because I will never forget being blown away reading Gibson's original story "Johnny Mnemonic" (not the movie--retch!retch!) in Omni magazine in 1981. That story went off in my little-girl head like an M-80 in a mailbox. 19-freakin-81! That was Orwell passing the torch, right there. Soviet dystopia to Cyber dystopia, political dictatorship to omnipresent corporate ownership. This is the way the universe ends, not with a bang but an advert.

Also, pleeeeeeeze do not associate the Gibson's work (Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer) with the movies based on them. That's like associating Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to the putrefying slagheap miscarriage that was LXG.

mshcherbatskaya:
Also, pleeeeeeeze do not associate the Gibson's work (Johnny Mnemonic, Neuromancer) with the movies based on them. That's like associating Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen to the putrefying slagheap miscarriage that was LXG.

Amen to that.

Steampunk, Cyberpunk is cool and all But I'd much rather be in a Steampunk world before a Cyberpunk one. I think a lot of this is due to the fact i find Airships powered by steam to be A++ Awesome and My love for Bioshock.

I vote for Cyberpunk because for the most part, the steampunk that I have seen has not had the "Punk" feel. Cyberpunk such as Neuromancer, have had a real "Downtrodden" feel to them. Many Cyberpunk works feature a Dystopian feel. All of the steampunk that i have seen has had a very upbeat feel to it, a stark contrast to the undercities of Chiba City from Neuromancer.

Additionally, cyberpunk has is much more"forward looking". Cyberpunk created the internet (not Al Gore as some believe), but steampunk is just looking at the past.

In conclusion, Cyberpunk=Computer Nerds, Steampunk=History Buffs.

As a gamer, I got started in the world of table top roleplaying, namely Rifts, Shadowrun and the World of Darkness (in my defense I started when I was 14 and was not fully aware of the majority of WoD players.)

As such, for me, Cyberpunk and future technology will always have it's place in my heart. Snowcrash, 1984, anything by Gibson, The Matrix, Hackers (Oh yeah, I went there) and everything else. For me, Cyberpunk is a look into potential futures; a sort of constructive dreaming. Steampunk is escapism, and far too much so for me (not that Cyberpunk isn't.)

I've been to quite a few punk shows, and they're pretty fun. But wouldn't a cyberpunk show just be called a rave? And a Steampunk show called the World's Fair (circa 1927)? Either way, awesome poll. It came down to art deco vs. VR for me, never so torn in my life on a decision.

Darth Mobius:
I just chose Cyberpunk because I love technology.. But Steampunk as presented in Final fantasy is cool too... I really don't think I could live without my cars though, so Cyberpunk wins it...

You have those old wind-up car things that put along the road at 20kph. But why do you need cars when you can fly zepplins and shoot lasers and command an army of robots!

I like cyberpunk, but it's not very creative. Don't get me wrong, it does play with your imagination and mind but it doesn't have the same style.

I still can't figure out some differences between steampunk and retro-futuristic.

I had to choose choice #3 because I honestly thought that's what this poll was going to be about at first :)

Of those two real choices, I really don't know. I love the space-age Cyberpunk series the most perhaps, but also like the feel and atmosphere of the Steampunk (can't believe you didn't mention Wild Wild West in that list by the way...).

How a bout another genre - Postpunk. I'd say that's my favorite of them all. You know what it is, trust me: Society advances to the point where it collapses in on itself and launches people back into a pseudo-stone-age littered with random bits of technology here and there.

Movies:
Mad Max(s)
Postman
Waterworld
Planet of the Apes
Time Machine

I absoloutely ADORE Steampunk. Steam Powered cars, ornithopters, to a limited extent Airships...
Basically all vehciles in Miyazaki films... I love Howl's Moving Castle by the way.
If anyone likes Steampunk, here's a couple cool links.
This is a video of a steam powered aircaft designed in the 1930s. Read the description for more info.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=nw6NFmcnW-8
And this is a bunch of Warhammer wannabes that just look freakin' sweet.
http://www.privateerpress.com/WARMACHINE/default.php
And this is a link to mandatory joke link.
[No way am I gonna be Banned again for RickRolling, Link Removed!]

I just finished a William Gibson book with his signature as a bookmark (he was in my favourite cafe and a 7-11, but I only said hi once) so I had to vote cyberpunk. Although, I was pretty disappointed in Neuromancer; I find his newer work more descriptive and poetic.

Darth Mobius:

Lerxst:

How a bout another genre - Postpunk. I'd say that's my favorite of them all. You know what it is, trust me: Society advances to the point where it collapses in on itself and launches people back into a pseudo-stone-age littered with random bits of technology here and there.

Movies:
Mad Max(s)
Postman
Waterworld
Planet of the Apes
Time Machine

I thought those fell under the cyberpunk.. But yeah, Mad Max or Waterworld would be great, as long as there was no Kevin Costner...

Mad Max 3 was a no go zone for me right from the credits. Nothing says war-torn post-apocalyptic future like Tina Turner!

Well, this teaches me to read the OP's post before voting... Regardless, if I hadn't of voted for option 3, I would've voted for cyberpunk, simply due to me like computers better than steam. That, and me just being a little sadistic (cyberpunk has the tendency to create a world filled with down-trodden people, so it gets points in my book).