Why clicker game Banana — the ‘legal infinite money glitch’ — is going viral on Steam

What’s a banana worth? A diamond banana may be worth $70 or $165, depending on the day. The gentleman banana — a banana with a hat and dress shoes — is less than a dollar. The pickle banana, which is a banana-shaped pickle, is roughly $40. There’s even a banana, the golden, shiny banana, that sold for more than $1,000. But most bananas, regardless of their looks, are worth just pennies — even the banana made of dark matter. Does any of this make sense to you? It shouldn’t, unless you’re one of the thousands of people “playing” Banana, an idle clicker game where you simply click a banana to make a number go up.

OK, so what is Banana? Once you download Banana and boot it up, a window will pop up. It’s a banana on a vomit green background. Click on the banana and the numbers will go up. I’m at 772. And... that’s it! You just click. Every so often, you’ll get a banana drop right into your Steam inventory: one of dozens of differently decorated bananas currently available, like the diamond or gentleman bananas. “Banana, with the own words of the dev theselions, Banana is pretty much a stupid game, a copy of Egg but way worse,” developer team member Hery told Polygon.

Last week, more than 141,000 people were clicking on a banana concurrently, according to SteamDB. Now, that number has nearly doubled. A lot of people are playing Banana, but the numbers aren’t quite right. Banana has a botting problem; Hery told Polygon that a third of that 141,000 number was real players — so around 47,000 people. (They’ve contacted Valve support to figure out how to stop it.) But since then, Banana has continued to grow. As of June 10, more than 252,000 computers had Banana open. By June 17, Banana peaked at 858,915 players, briefly making it Steam’s most played game. On June 19, even more players — 917,272 to be exact — played the game. The thing is, 917,272 people aren’t necessarily all clicking on the banana continuously; to get the drops, you only have to click occasionally for a banana to get dropped into your Steam inventory. The majority of players are likely keeping the tab open and clicking every once in a while. (You get drops every three and 18 hours.)

It’s likely that more of these players are “real” now; the game’s virality has continued to expand as more people learn about the game. The higher it ranks on SteamDB — right now, it’s just under Counter-Strike 2 and has surpassed Dota 2 — the more people learn about the game. But there are still bots.

“Unfortunately we are currently facing some problems around botting, since the game takes basically 1% to no resources of your PC, people are abusing up to 1000 alternative accounts in order to get Rarer drops or at least drops in bulk,” Hery said over Discord chat.

Now we’re getting closer to the value of the bananas: Each banana is an item that goes into your Steam inventory, where they can then be bought and sold on the Steam Marketplace. (They don’t do anything in-game.) It’s largely very low-stakes trading, as most bananas are worth mere cents. My “cherry blossomana,” which is a banana painted with cherry blossoms, is worth $0.04. If someone buys it, I make money for doing absolutely nothing. The rarer the banana, the more it sells for. One banana — the Crypticnana — sold for $378.92 on May 31; it’s a mysterious banana, and only 25 exist. On June 11, the Crypticnana sold for $514. But the top banana is the Special Golden Banana (it is what it says on the tin) that sold for $1,378.58 on June 9, then for $964.67 on June 11. Currently, there’s just one listed for sale at $1,345.01. Meanwhile, I sold a cherry blossomana for $0.02.

More bananas, created by the community, are added occasionally. But some of the bananas are changing: “I believe you’ve noticed recently we’ve been changing some images from some bananas to something different,” the developer wrote on Steam. “We’re reviewing all the bananas that are public, because things blew up faster than any of us could dream of and we are taking this very seriously, we have 3 artists working on the new re-designs, and we will be extra cautious and strict about what we allow to be uploaded in the future.” For example, the Amazin’Horsenana used Badgers animator and creator MrWeel’s Amazing Horse art without permission, and has since been replaced with different art. Hery told Polygon that the popularity cresting so rapidly was a little worrisome — it’s a lot of pressure to keep things in order. But so far, they’re managing.

Despite the game’s popularity, bananas in Banana are still largely selling for pennies, but I’m seeing more in the $5 to $20 range. Some bananas are increasing in value, like the Picklenana, which was $15 when I first wrote this story. Now it’s sold for $35.

“I do believe that the reason why it mostly caught on is because it’s a legal ‘Infinite money glitch,’” Hery said. “Users make money out of a free game while selling free virtual items.”

Because yes, people are buying even the least valuable or rare bananas. It’s hard to say why — maybe for the meme? Or because the investment is typically so low? Humans like to collect stuff, even virtual bananas. It’s not really an NFT, but it kind of works that way — but without blockchain involvement. It’s a very weird virtual trading card.

The money you earn from selling your virtual bananas goes into your Steam Wallet, which you can use to buy stuff on Steam. The developer team (which is a group of four people spread across the world, from South America to Germany) makes most of its money from the Banana item store, which outright sells certain bananas for $0.25. (Hery declined to share how much they’ve made from the item store.) But the developers also take a small percentage of marketplace selling, too, as does Valve, with the rest going to the seller.

Several folks on the Banana Discord and Steam forums have speculated about the validity of the game — is it some sort of scam? A Ponzi scheme? Something to do with cryptocurrency or NFTs? A play for the developer just to make money? Is there something hidden in the game? You can understand why people would be wary. It’s weird. Hery said the team disagrees with all those assessments. It’s just a dumb game with bananas.

Hery said Banana will likely get updates, including a way for people to use their items to change the way the banana looks in-game. It might get a minigame, too, and maybe a way to exchange multiples of bananas for another one. Users can also submit banana art to be eventually added into the game, and lots of people have submitted designs on the Banana Discord.

But for now, it’s just clicking bananas.

Update (June 11): This story has been updated to reflect increasing player numbers.

Update (June 18): This story has been updated as Banana continues to grow, reaching a peak of 858,915 players on June 17 — briefly making it Steam’s number one game.

Update (June 21): This story has been updated as Banana continues to grow, reaching a peak of 917,272 players on June 20.