"Banana Game Sees Sharp Decline in Steam Player Numbers"

After reaching its peak in June 2024, Banana on Steam has since experienced a significant decrease in concurrent players. This article delves into the factors behind its initial popularity and the subsequent decline in player engagement.

Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline

It's a Clicker Game About Bananas…

Banana on Steam, launched on April 23, 2024, quickly became a sensation in the gaming world. This seemingly simple clicker game reached an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024 but has not managed to replicate those numbers since. According to SteamDB, the game saw a notable decline starting in November 2024 and continuing to the present.

For those unfamiliar, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game that breaks the mold of traditional gaming. The core mechanic involves players clicking on a banana image repeatedly. The real draw, however, is the potential for financial gain. Players can obtain virtual banana items and trade them on the Steam Community Market, with some rare items commanding high prices. A notable example is the "Special Golden Banana," which once sold for $1,378.58.

The game's rapid rise to fame can be attributed to its unique premise of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort. In an interview with Polygon in June 2024, team developer Hery described the game as a "legal ‘Infinite money glitch.’" This allure attracted not only genuine players but also automated bots programmed 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. However, it remains uncertain whether the current player base of over 100,000 is entirely genuine. Post-peak, the game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline. By July 2024, the average number of players dropped to 549,091, and this downward trend persisted through the subsequent months. November 2024 marked a significant drop from 400,000 to just over 100,000 players. Although the game briefly doubled its player count at the start of 2025, it has yet to recover from its overall decline.

Currently, Banana maintains a strong presence 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 ascertain whether bots played a role. The overall trend of decreasing player counts likely reflects the waning novelty of the game.

The developers have been proactive in updating the game, introducing trading cards, event drops, and quality-of-life enhancements. They've also engaged the community by allowing user-generated banana art through the Steam Workshop, with creators earning a percentage of sales. Despite these efforts, it seems unlikely that the game will regain its peak popularity without the influence of bots.