Banana Game Sees Sharp Decline in Steam Player Numbers

After reaching its peak in June 2024, Banana on Steam has since experienced a decrease in concurrent players. Dive deeper to understand the dynamics behind its rise and fall in popularity.

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 phenomenon, achieving an all-time peak of 917,272 concurrent players in June 2024. However, the game has struggled to regain those heights, with a notable decline observed from November 2024 to the present day, according to SteamDB.

For those new to the game, Banana is a free-to-play clicker game that breaks the mold of traditional gaming. The core mechanic is simple: players click on a banana image repeatedly. The game's appeal, though, stems not from its gameplay but from the opportunity for financial gain. Players can earn virtual banana items which can be sold on the Steam Community Market, with some rare items like the "Special Golden Banana" fetching high prices, such as $1,378.58.

The game's rapid ascent can be attributed to the allure of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort. Developer Hery likened it to a "legal 'Infinite money glitch,'" in a June 2024 Polygon interview. However, this popularity also attracted automated bots aimed at 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 explained to Polygon. "People are abusing up to 1,000 alternative accounts to get rarer drops or at least drops in bulk."

In response, the developers introduced bot prevention measures in May 2024. Despite this, it remains unclear if the game's current player base of over 100,000 is entirely genuine. Following its peak, the game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline, averaging 549,091 players by July 2024. This downward trajectory continued, with November 2024 seeing a significant drop from 400,000 to just above 100,000 players. Although there was a brief surge at the start of 2025, the game has yet to recover fully.

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, 2025, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this dip remains uncertain, and it's challenging to ascertain the involvement of bots. The overall decline in player numbers likely reflects the waning novelty of the game.

The developers have been proactive in updating Banana, introducing trading cards, event drops, and quality-of-life improvements. They've also engaged the community by enabling user-generated banana art via the Steam Workshop, with creators earning a share of sales. Whether these efforts will help the game return to its peak popularity without relying on bots is yet to be seen.