Banana Game Sees Sharp Decline in Steam Player Numbers

After reaching its peak in June 2024, Banana on Steam has since experienced a notable decrease in concurrent players. Delve deeper into the story behind its rise and fall in popularity.

Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline

It’s a Clicker Game About Bananas…

Banana on Steam, launched on April 23, 2024, took the gaming world by storm with its simple yet intriguing concept. This free-to-play clicker game soared to an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024. However, the game has struggled to maintain those heights, with a significant decline noted from November 2024 onwards.

For those unfamiliar, Banana defies traditional gaming norms with its minimalistic approach. The core gameplay involves clicking on a banana image repeatedly. The game's true appeal lies in the potential for financial gains, as players can acquire virtual banana items and sell them on the Steam Community Market. Some rare items, like the "Special Golden Banana," have fetched high prices, with one selling for $1,378.58.

The game's meteoric rise was fueled by the allure of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort. Hery, a team developer, described the game as a "legal 'Infinite money glitch,'" in a June 2024 interview with Polygon. However, this surge in popularity also attracted automated bots designed to farm valuable drops, inflating the player count artificially.

"Unfortunately, we are currently facing some problems around botting, since the game takes basically 1% to no resources of your PC," Hery explained to 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 this, the authenticity of the game's 100,000+ player base remains uncertain. Post-peak, the 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 over 100,000. Although there was a brief surge at the start of 2025, the game has yet to recover its former glory.

As of now, Banana maintains a strong presence with 112,966 concurrent players and ranks 7th on Steam's Most Played Games list. However, a sudden dip 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 ascertain the role of bots. The overall trend of declining player counts suggests that the initial novelty of the game is fading.

The developers have been proactive in updating the game, introducing trading cards, event drops, and quality-of-life improvements. They've also engaged the community by enabling user-generated banana art through the Steam Workshop, with creators earning a share of sales. Whether these efforts will help Banana regain its peak without bot assistance remains uncertain.