Banana Game Has Sudden Dip in Steam's Concurrent Player Count

After peaking in June 2024, Banana on Steam has seen a steady decline in concurrent players. Let's delve into the reasons behind its initial popularity and subsequent drop.

Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline

A Clicker Game About Bananas…

For the uninitiated, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game with minimalist gameplay—essentially, repeatedly clicking a banana image. Its appeal wasn't in the gameplay itself, but in the potential to earn real money. Players could acquire and sell virtual banana items on the Steam Community Market, with some rare items fetching surprisingly high prices—a "Special Golden Banana," for example, sold for $1,378.58.

Several factors contributed to the game's initial meteoric rise. 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 farm valuable in-game items, artificially inflating the player count.

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."

Bot prevention measures were implemented in May 2024, leaving the authenticity of the 100,000+ player base uncertain. Regardless, a sharp decline followed the peak. By July 2024, the average player count had dropped to 549,091. This downward trend continued, with November 2024 seeing a dramatic fall from 400,000 to just over 100,000. While a temporary surge occurred early in 2025, the game hasn't recovered to its previous heights.

Currently boasting 112,966 concurrent players and holding a respectable 7th place on Steam's Most Played Games list, Banana experienced a concerning drop to approximately 50,000 players on March 16th, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this sudden dip remains unclear, and bot activity is difficult to confirm. Nevertheless, the overall decline likely reflects the game's initial novelty wearing off.

The developers have consistently updated the game, adding 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 be enough to restore the game's former glory without the aid of bots remains uncertain.