After reaching its peak in June 2024, the game *Banana* on Steam has since experienced a notable decrease in its concurrent player count. Dive deeper to understand the factors contributing to its rise and subsequent decline in popularity.
Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline
It's a Clicker Game About Bananas…
Banana on Steam, launched on April 23, 2024, is a seemingly simple clicker game that soared to unexpected heights, reaching an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024. However, the game has yet to reach those numbers again, showing a significant decline from November 2024 to the present, as reported by SteamDB.
For those new to Banana, it's a free-to-play clicker game that breaks traditional gaming norms. With gameplay that involves repeatedly clicking on a banana image, its appeal lies not in the mechanics but in the potential for financial gain. Players can acquire virtual banana items and sell them on the Steam Community Market, with some rare items, like the "Special Golden Banana," fetching high prices, such as $1,378.58.
The game's meteoric rise can be attributed to the allure of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort, as described by team developer Hery in a June 2024 interview with Polygon as a "legal 'Infinite money glitch.'" This surge in popularity, however, also attracted automated bots designed to farm valuable drops, artificially inflating the player count.
"Unfortunately, we are currently facing some problems around botting, since the game takes basically 1% to no resources of your PC," Hery told Polygon. "People are abusing up to 1,000 alternative accounts in order to get Rarer drops or at least drops in bulk."
In response, the developers implemented bot prevention measures in May 2024. Despite these efforts, it remains unclear if the game's 100,000+ players are genuine. Post-peak, the game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline. By July 2024, the average number of players had dropped to 549,091, and this downward trend continued, with November 2024 witnessing a significant drop from 400,000 to just above 100,000. Although the game momentarily doubled its player count at the start of 2025, it has yet to rebound from this decline.
Currently, Banana holds strong with 112,966 concurrent players and ranks 7th on Steam's Most Played Games list. However, a sudden drop to around 50,000 players was observed on March 16th, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this dip remains unclear, and it's challenging to determine if bots were involved. The general trend of decreasing player counts likely stems from the game's initial novelty wearing off.
The developers have been proactive, regularly updating the game with trading cards, event drops, and quality-of-life improvements. They've also engaged the community by allowing user-generated banana art through the Steam Workshop, with creators earning a percentage of sales. Whether these efforts will help Banana regain its peak without the aid of bots remains to be seen.
