Summary
Steamusers paying attention to the most popular games on the platform may have noticed a dramatic spike in popularity for an unknown game calledBanana, leaving them to wonder what this new game is. At the time of writing,Bananahas nearly 850,000 concurrent players, putting it in second place behind onlyCounter-Strike 2. This meansBananacurrently has more active players than games likeDOTA 2andPUBG: Battlegrounds.
How exactly a game nobody had ever heard of two months ago suddenly became one of Steam’s most popular games is an interesting question. This curiosity only intensifies when players learn the game’s actual content. What seems to have happened is thatBanana, intentionally or otherwise, has created an environment similar to other recent social trends online, leading players to believe it isn’t just a game but a viable source of income.
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The Banana Game Is Just An Idle Clicker With A Twist
Banana Takes Little Time Or Attention To Engage With
Opening upBanana, players will be met with a dark yellow screen and a picture of the titular fruit. Clicking the banana causes a counter to appear above it, tracking the number of times the player has clicked the banana. And that’s it;that is the entire gameplay experience ofBanana. There is no way to expand into automatic clicks like inCookie Clicker, and seemingly no goals behind raising the counter.
The only thing differentiatingBananafrom just entering “+1” on a calculator app and spamming the equals sign is the occasional drops that players will receive. Every so often,Bananaplayers will receive a picture of a bananathat is added to their Steam inventory. These drops are not determined by the number of clicks, but instead by time. As long as players keep the game open in the background and occasionally click the banana, they will receive one of these banana pictures.
All ofBanana’s banana images are created in part by the community through the game’s officialDiscordserver.
Given this is the entire functionality of the game, many players are likely to be wondering why it’s reached a concurrent player count higher thanDOTA 2’s. Sure, the game is less involved than any other major game on Steam, but it is also barely a game. Well,Banana’s popularity all comes down to the random banana drops and what has sprung up around them.
Banana’s Digital Drops Sell For Real Money
Most Banana Drops Are Only Worth A Few Cents
The real aspect ofBananathat has attracted players isn’t the barebones gameplay, but the chance to earn some money.Players have been buying and selling their random drops, usually for just a few cents, while some of the rare bananas have sold for over $1,000, according toPolygon. Suddenly, the allure of this largely uninteresting game becomes much more clear. Hundreds of thousands of people aren’t playing this game because they just like clicking a banana, many are likely doing it because they think they’re going to make money off a free game, while others are probably just enjoying the game’s novelty.
Technically, yes,players have been making money off ofBanana. For the most part, this likely doesn’t add up to anything too substantial. While there have been a couple of notably high sales, the majority of banana pictures aren’t worth even a single dollar. Even if players get a rare banana, they have to hope someone will buy it from them, something that is probably only going to get rarer as players begin to realize something very important about these digital bananas.
Banana’s Item Drops May Sell For Money, But They Aren’t Worth Anything
Banana Drops Are Collectibles With No Functionality
There’s an old adage that an item is only worth what someone is willing to pay for it, but it’s important to remember that this is only true transaction-to-transaction. Just because someone bought a digital banana picture for over a thousand dollars doesn’t mean they will be able to sell it for as much. At the end of the day,Banana’s drops are simply digital pictures of a bananathat anyone can easily see for free online. Having these pictures in one’s Steam inventory doesn’t really have any inherent value, so there’s no guarantee they can be resold.
The perceived value ofBanana’s image drops may initially seem similar to other dubious investments like NFTs, which aren’t unfamiliar to gaming, withUbisoft’s misguided attempt at NFTs, and abizarre letter from Square Enix’s presidenton the subject in 2022. While many have made this comparison, it is important to recognize that there is a pretty stark difference.Bananadrops have no ties to blockchains, meaning there is none of the same “exclusivity” that theoretically gives NFTs their value. This also means thatBananadoesn’t have the same negative environmental impact as NFTs.
Where the similarity arises is in the nebulous value ofBanana’s itemsand the long-term viability of “investing” in pictures of a banana. Like NFTs, there is no guarantee theBananafad will last. Players who shell out large amounts of money to expand their collection will likely be left with a Steam inventory full of worthless images once the hype aroundBananadies down.
Is Banana A Scam?
Many Players Have Wondered If There Is Nefarious Intent Behind The Game
It is important to point out that, while people may lose money on theirBananatransactions, the game is not a scam.Bananais a free game, and it makes no promises about monetary gains. Players are free to interact with the secondary marketplace surrounding the game however they please. As with any collectible, players should be aware that they are assuming a certain level of risk when paying large sums of money for these banana pictures. Just because the risk of losing money withBanana-related purchases is higher, that doesn’t mean the game itself has technically done anything wrong.
WhileBananaisn’t necessarily a scam,it is important for players not to get caught up in the hype. One member ofBanana’s development team, Hery, referred to the game as a “legal infinite money glitch” when explaining why the game is so popular,as reported byForbes. It’s important to remember that an “infinite money glitch” isn’t possible in real life. As soon as players stop paying forBananadrops, the money dries up.
Banana’s current high player count is likely due in part to this perception that the game is a way to make money. There is also a large number of bots being used to try and farm rare drops from the game, according toInsider Gaming. This is important to keep in mind because it means there is a lower number of real people engaging with the game, meaning the list of potential buyers for any items is lower than the reported 800,000+ players. And, if everyone is playingBananato try and make money, that meansmany of these players probably aren’t potential buyers.
Banana’s popularity has raised some questions about what Steamintends to do about the game. While Valve isn’t on the hook for players deciding to spend their money onBanana’s drops, the game’s inflated numbers due to bots do raise questions about how easy it is for a game to jump to the top of the charts when many of its active users are bots. Valvewill likely want to address this issue so more games won’t start using bots to try and climb theSteamcharts for increased visibility.
Steam
Developed by Valve and released in 2003, Steam is a popular video game distribution service originally used by the company to provide updates for Valve games. In 2005, Steam expanded to distribute third-party titles. Steam users can not only browse games for purchase, but they can also post reviews and upload self-made content.
