After reaching its peak in June 2024, Banana on Steam has since experienced a decrease in concurrent players. Dive into the details to understand its journey in popularity and the factors contributing to its decline.
Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline
It’s a Clicker Game About Bananas…
Launched on April 23, 2024, Banana on Steam quickly ascended to fame, achieving an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024. However, the game has yet to reclaim those heights, showing a significant drop-off from November 2024 to the present. For those new to the game, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game that defies traditional gaming norms. The gameplay is minimalistic, focusing on players clicking a banana image repeatedly. The game's appeal, however, lies in its financial incentives, allowing players to acquire and sell virtual banana items on the Steam Community Market. Some rare items, like the "Special Golden Banana," have sold for as much 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 Polygon interview as a "legal 'Infinite money glitch.'" This surge in popularity 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, the game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline. By July 2024, the average number of players had dropped to 549,091. This downward trend continued, with November 2024 witnessing a significant drop from 400,000 to just above 100,000. Although the game saw a brief resurgence at the start of 2025, it has not recovered from its decline.
Currently, Banana maintains a solid player base with 112,966 concurrent players, ranking 7th on Steam's Most Played Games list. However, a significant drop to around 50,000 players was observed on March 16th, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this sudden dip is unclear, and it's challenging to ascertain whether bots were involved. The general trend of declining 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 share of sales. Whether these initiatives will help the game regain its former glory without bot assistance remains to be seen.
