If you regularly check the Steam charts to see if there’s anything new and interesting to play, then you might have noticed something. called a strange little “game”. Banana. It quickly became a huge success and, as of this writing, sits in third place with over 400,000 concurrent players. It’s a simple idle clicker like many before it, so what makes players flock to the static screen of a giant banana?
Sweet, sweet promise of money, that’s it. It’s an extremely barebones title where you repeatedly click on a banana. That’s it, although there is a twist. As you click on the tropical fruit, there is a chance that a banana sticker will drop into your Steam inventory. These bananas come in a variety of designs, from silver-plated options to one that looks like it’s broken.
Bananas can be sold on the Steam Marketplace as they appear in your inventory. Rare bananas have already sold for $1,400, although the average payout is in the $0.02 range. One developer called it a “legitimate infinite lack of money.” interview with Polygon. “Users monetize the free game while selling free virtual items,” he said.
Earned money goes into the Steam wallet, and this money can later be used to buy games. So these bananas are basically NFTs, just without the blockchain. People buy and sell them like crazy, weird fruit-based trading cards. Forget the banana stand: I think there’s money in just a banana facsimile.
If the idea of spending all day clicking fake bananas on a vomit-green background doesn’t appeal to you, the developers sell inventory bananas directly $0.25 a pop. However, the game itself is free to play. The developers deny the clicker claims it’s kind of a scam or a Ponzi scheme, simply saying it’s “almost a fool’s game.” Idle clicks, after all, are nothing new.
Looking ahead, the designers teased innovations, including a way to use inventory items to change the appearance of a simple in-game banana. The minigame from Pike can also be a store upgrade that allows players to change the same banana multiple times for an unparalleled drop. One thing is a near certainty. Mass popularity Banana sure to inspire many copycats. May I humbly offer a slice of pizza to click again and again.
