If you regularly track the Steam charts in search of new and exciting games, you may have stumbled upon an odd little “game” called Banana. This game has rapidly soared to success, currently holding the number three position with over 400,000 concurrent players. It’s a simple idle clicker game, similar to many before it, so what’s drawing players to this static screen featuring a gigantic banana?
The allure of earning some cash, that’s what. The game is extremely minimalistic, involving the repetitive clicking on a banana. That’s pretty much it. However, there’s a twist: as you continuously click the tropical fruit, there’s a chance for a banana sticker to drop into your Steam inventory. These stickers come in various designs, ranging from silver-encrusted to glitchy, hacked appearances.
Since these banana stickers appear in your inventory, they can be sold on the Steam Marketplace. Rare stickers have fetched as much as $1,400, although the average payout is around $0.02. One of the developers referred to it as a “legal infinite money glitch” in an interview with Polygon. “Users make money out of a free game while selling free virtual items,” he explained.
The money earned from selling stickers goes into a Steam wallet, which can then be used to purchase other games. Essentially, these banana stickers function much like NFTs, but without the blockchain element. The craze for buying and selling them likens to trading cards, just with a fruit theme. Forget the banana stand: now, there’s money in the simulation of a banana.
If the concept of spending your entire day clicking on a faux banana in front of a neon-green background doesn’t appeal to you, the developers also sell inventory bananas outright for $0.25 each. The game itself is free to play. Developers dismiss accusations that the clicker is some sort of scam or Ponzi scheme, simply calling it “pretty much a stupid game.” After all, idle clickers are not a new genre.
Looking ahead, the developers have hinted at future updates, including ways to use inventory items to alter the appearance of the in-game banana. A potential minigame is also in the works, along with a shop upgrade allowing players to exchange multiples of the same banana for a unique drop. One thing is almost certain: the massive popularity of Banana will likely spawn numerous copycats. May I humbly suggest a pizza slice as the next click-worthy idle game?
