"Banana Game Sees Sharp Decline in Steam Player Count"

After reaching its peak in June 2024, Banana on Steam has since experienced a notable decrease in concurrent players. Dive into the details to understand its rise to fame and subsequent player decline.

Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline

It's a Clicker Game About Bananas...

Launched on April 23, 2024, Banana on Steam quickly became a sensation, reaching an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024. However, the game has not seen those numbers again. According to SteamDB, there has been a significant decline from November 2024 to the present day.

For those new to the game, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game that breaks the mold of traditional gaming. Its gameplay is minimalistic, involving players clicking on a banana image repeatedly. The game's appeal lies not in its gameplay but in the potential for financial gain. Players can acquire virtual banana items and sell them on the Steam Community Market, where rare items have fetched high prices. For example, a "Special Golden Banana" once sold for $1,378.58.

The game's rapid rise to fame can be attributed to several factors. The initial allure of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort attracted a large player base. In a June 2024 interview with Polygon, team developer Hery described the game as a "legal 'Infinite money glitch.'" However, this surge in popularity also drew in automated bots farming 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."

The developers implemented bot prevention measures in May 2024, but it remains unclear how many of the game's 100,000+ players are genuine. Despite these efforts, the game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline post-peak. 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 over 100,000. Although the game briefly doubled its player count at the start of 2025, it has not rebounded to its previous highs.

Currently, Banana holds strong 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, 2025, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this dip is unclear, and it's difficult to determine if bots were involved. The overall trend of decreasing player counts suggests that the game's initial novelty may be waning.

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 efforts will help the game regain its former glory without bot assistance remains to be seen.