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

After reaching its peak in June 2024, Banana on Steam has experienced a notable decline in concurrent players. This article delves into the game's rise to fame and the subsequent drop in its player base.

Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline

It’s a Clicker Game About Bananas…

Banana on Steam, launched on April 23, 2024, is a seemingly simple clicker game that quickly gained immense popularity, achieving an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024. However, it has not reached those heights again. According to SteamDB, there has been a significant decline in player numbers from November 2024 to the present.

For those unfamiliar, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game that challenges conventional gaming norms. Launched in April 2024, the game's mechanics are minimalistic, primarily involving clicking a banana image repeatedly. Its appeal, however, stems from the potential for financial gains. Players can acquire virtual banana items and sell them on the Steam Community Market, with some rare items fetching high prices. For example, a "Special Golden Banana" once sold for $1,378.58.

The game's meteoric rise can be attributed to several factors. The allure of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort initially attracted a significant number of players. In an interview with Polygon in June 2024, the game's developer, Hery, described it as a "legal ‘Infinite money glitch.’" However, this surge also drew in 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."

The developers implemented bot prevention measures in May 2024, but it remains uncertain whether the current 100,000+ players are all genuine. The game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline after its peak. By July 2024, the average number of players had dropped to 549,091, and this downward trend continued into November 2024, with a significant drop from 400,000 to just over 100,000. Despite a brief surge at the start of 2025, the game has not recovered from this decline.

Banana currently 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 determine if bots were involved. The overall trend of declining player counts is likely due to the game's initial novelty wearing off.

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 allowing user-generated banana art through the Steam Workshop, with creators earning a share of sales. Whether these efforts will help Banana regain its peak popularity without bot assistance remains to be seen.