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 decrease in concurrent players. This article delves into the reasons behind its rise to fame and subsequent decline in popularity.

Banana Game Steam Charts Show Massive Decline

It’s a Clicker Game About Bananas…

Banana on Steam, launched on April 23, 2024, quickly became a sensation. This free-to-play clicker game, which challenges traditional gaming norms, reached an all-time peak of 917,272 players in June 2024. However, since then, the game has not been able to match those numbers. According to SteamDB, there has been a significant decline in player numbers from November 2024 to the present.

For newcomers, Banana is a minimalist game where the main activity is clicking on a banana image repeatedly. Its appeal, however, stems not from its gameplay but from the potential to earn money. Players can collect virtual banana items and sell them 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 rise can be attributed to the allure of earning Steam Wallet funds with minimal effort. Developer Hery described it as a "legal 'Infinite money glitch'" in a June 2024 interview with Polygon. This surge in popularity also attracted 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."

In response, the developers implemented bot prevention measures in May 2024. Despite this, it remains unclear how many of the game's 100,000+ players are genuine. Post-peak, the game's concurrent player count saw a sharp decline. By July 2024, the average number of players dropped to 549,091, and this downward trend continued, with November 2024 seeing a significant drop from 400,000 to just above 100,000. Although the game briefly doubled its player count at the start of 2025, it 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, 2025, between 17:00 and 23:00 UTC. The cause of this dip is unclear, and it's challenging to determine if bots were involved. The overall trend of decreasing player counts suggests that the game's initial novelty is 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 percentage of sales. Whether these efforts will help Banana regain its peak popularity without the aid of bots remains to be seen.