After peaking in June 2024, Banana on Steam has seen a significant drop in concurrent players. Let's delve into the reasons behind its initial popularity and subsequent decline.
Banana Game Steam Charts Reveal a Dramatic Fall
It's a Clicker Game…About Bananas
Released on April 23, 2024, *Banana*, a deceptively simple clicker game, unexpectedly soared to immense popularity, reaching a peak of 917,272 concurrent players in June 2024. However, this success proved short-lived. SteamDB data reveals a dramatic decline, particularly noticeable from November 2024 onwards.For the uninitiated, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game with a minimalist approach. Gameplay revolves around repeatedly clicking a banana image. Its appeal, however, lies not in its gameplay but in the potential to earn real money. Players can acquire virtual banana items and sell them on the Steam Community Market, with some rare items fetching surprisingly high prices—a "Special Golden Banana," for example, once sold for $1,378.58.
Several factors contributed to the game's initial explosive growth. The promise of easy Steam Wallet funds attracted a massive player base. Hery, from the development team, even described it as a "legal ‘Infinite money glitch’" in a June 2024 interview with Polygon. This popularity, however, also attracted an influx of bots designed to exploit the system and farm valuable items, artificially inflating player counts.
Hery explained to Polygon, "Unfortunately, we are currently facing some problems around botting, since the game takes basically 1% to no resources of your PC. People are abusing up to 1,000 alternative accounts in order to get rarer drops or at least drops in bulk."
Following the implementation of anti-bot measures in May 2024, the authenticity of the game's 100,000+ player base remains uncertain. Regardless, a sharp decline in concurrent players followed the peak. By July 2024, the average player count had dropped to 549,091. This downward trend persisted, with November 2024 seeing a drastic fall from 400,000 to just over 100,000. While a temporary surge occurred at the start of 2025, the game hasn't recovered to its previous heights.
Currently, Banana maintains a respectable 112,966 concurrent players, ranking 7th on Steam's Most Played Games list. However, a significant drop to approximately 50,000 players was observed on March 16th, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this sudden dip remains unclear, and the involvement of bots is uncertain. Nevertheless, the overall decline is likely attributable to the game's initial novelty wearing off.
The developers have consistently updated the game, introducing trading cards, event drops, and quality-of-life improvements. They've also engaged the community by enabling user-generated banana art via the Steam Workshop, with creators earning a share of sales. Whether these efforts will be enough to revive the game to its former glory without the aid of bots remains to be seen.
