Cyberpunk drew much of its power from being a reflection of time it was created, and we no longer live in that time.
This is a good point, succinctly put, and I thank penllawen for making it.
The early editions were very much the "grimdark 1980s future" as one user here used to put it. We're now at the point where about 40% of the U.S. population (to use the U.S. as a proxy but acknowledging that Shadowrun is played globally) was born after the 1980s and about half of the population won't have a functional memory of the 80s or its cultural zeitgeist.
As such, the future is a moving target. There are various reset buttons that the writers can press - like VITAS and Matrix crashes - to make sure the future doesn't get too far out ahead of us, or to explain why 60 years ahead doesn't look as advanced as we might be able to imagine - but the future marches on.
I'm less familiar with the recent SR setting, but have read a lot about how it's a different feel than early editions. I can understand it moving to more transhumanism, but I'm wondering what drove the game to be more about smooth criminals rather than robin hoods?
A lot of this comes from different publishers, which is to say different writers and the worlds that they create and the stories they tell.
For example, take Jordan Weisman, the creator of Shadowrun. Here's an answer he gave during a Reddit AMA (
link) about 8 years ago:
Shadowrun has it's own version of what honor and duty means. While an RPG allows and encourages each GM to create their own version of the world they are playing in, in my version of Shadowrun the runners are classical anti-heroes meaning that they are totally outside the "law" doing things that disrupt society but they do live by an internal code of honor and duty to each other and to the SINless, the poor souls without system identification numbers that live in the slums and are prayed upon by gangs and corps with equal abandon. In my version of the game the runners are often the only hope the SINless have.
So, respecting
Better Than Bad, which I enjoyed, the early editions were fueled by the creator who himself envisioned runners as hooders and defenders of the marginalized. Now that Jordan isn't involved anymore, the torch has been passed to others and their vision and the stories they tell.
There's also an aspect of depth vs. breadth. Shadowrun, as it has aged, has grown. There's been more time and ink (and electrons) to explore other topics and other organizations. The megacorps are still there and have their depth of lore, but now a lot of the rest of the Sixth World has been similarly developed. The number of factions and special interests has multiplied, which is great for giving GMs additional colors for their palettes, but also means that corporations aren't necessarily the center of attention anymore.
