Success did it in. The Zybourne Clock was the ultimate implementation and perfection of the genre. Steampunk disappeared shortly after because there was nothing more left to achieve.
References to Zybourne Clock made it into some pretty high-profile places thanks to former goons becoming adults and working their way into various industries: https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Johnny
> The entire game was planned to be be completed in less than a year, however only one person on the team had previous game development experience as a professional developer. He was banned from the project for criticizing it.
This made me laugh more than it should have.