So I played the weird Banana game that’s blowing up on Steam

One can never truly tell whether a game will become popular, or how it even does so. I imagine it’s the bane of many developers’ professional lives, moving into uncertain territory in a shaky industry that’s prone to fickle trends and hard-to-please masses. However, according to recent experience, it seems you can always make headway in the cutthroat world of gaming by appealing to fruit lovers on Steam.

Released in April this year, Banana is one of those things that can come along and just give you brief pause for thought. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry; you probably will soon enough (this article notwithstanding).

To give it the most succinct premise: Banana is a game about a banana. It’s not about playing as one or being embroiled in a tale about banana theft or something of that ilk. It does, however, feature a banana as its – shall we say – main protagonist.

The aim of the game is to click on the yellow fruit that sits peacefully at the center of the screen. When you click your mouse, a counter will add on a number. One, it will say. Then two, as is usually dictated in these things. And so on. The more you click, the more numbers.

That’s it. That’s what you do. You click on the banana, and it will tell you how many times you clicked it. Over 8,900 users have decreed that this game is worthy of a “Very Positive” review score. It’s also the fourth most-played game on Steam at the time of writing, ahead of GTA 5, Destiny 2, and Stardew Valley.

Okay, what’s going on here? There has to be a bit more to it than what we’re seeing on the surface, thought I, so I decided to give Banana a go. Not for science, you understand.

I ate one for breakfast before writing this (true story)

At the very least, the game is free, so it’s got that going for it. If, at this point, you’re even the tiniest bit intrigued about a game where you seemingly click on a digital banana endlessly, you’ll be pleased to know you don’t have to pay a penny to do so. Honestly, I think it would be a bit rich of the developers (for there are numerous) to charge money. But more on that later.

Banana is as basic as a game can be. In a similar vein to past click-based releases like Cookie Clicker, our task is simply to press the mouse button down on-screen in order to see the counter go up. Is it fun? I wouldn’t say so. Although I must admit to getting a slight dopamine rush when I realized I could alternate left and right clicks in quick succession. Whoosh! Up went those numbers, taking me to new planes of video game ecstasy I hadn’t felt for, ooh, minutes.

Then there was the moment I received my first achievement. I can’t honestly say what exactly I did to earn it, but within a few moments of playing, Steam pinged and up it popped: Click. That’s what the achievement is called and also how it’s described. I also realized that it’s the only achievement in the whole game, so while I’m now a Banana completionist, that realization did bring me crashing back down to earth.

The point being that, on the surface, Banana isn’t anything more than a simple game about clicking on a potassium-rich berry. But it’s not really about the game itself. There’s something else going on here that’s causing the game to blow up on Steam.

What’s the real story?

Honestly, I can’t explain it. This feels like a meme that’s somehow caught the attention of gamers and everyone’s just running with it. It’s like a gag I’m not quite in on. The fact that it should not be a success of any kind might be precisely the point. All I can tell you is what I’ve seen so far, which is a game about clicking on the aforementioned banana.

But it’s got something going for it. There’s a reason it keeps smashing its concurrent player record (currently on 301,064 according to SteamDB). In a Forbes feature, they offer a theory about why it’s become as popular as it has (so far). In a nutshell: Banana does offer more than just making numbers go up, and it has to do with custom skins made by the community. According to Forbes:

“Apparently you can earn skins in the game every three hours, which mostly cost 3 cents. You get 1 cent by selling them, Valve and the developer get 1 cent each. But some…sell for more. I saw a report that one sold for $400.”

The math suggests that, in theory, the developers of Banana could earn a profit from players selling these skins every few hours. It could well be in the thousands at this point; enough that it could draw some unwanted attention from Steam itself.

It feels less like a game (there’s a whole academic subsection dedicated to the discussion of what it means to even “play” a “video game”) and more like an experiment. Perhaps a prank that’s now become bigger than its original intention. Banana is a whole community. Seriously, check out the Discord channel. Thousands of people are part of this clique, adding their own skins for others to obtain.

As I look now on Twitch.tv for anyone who’s currently streaming the game (just searching for “banana” feels like an exercise in futility), I can see that five channels are playing, with just one viewer each. It’s clearly, therefore, not about any potential entertainment value.

I’ll admit, I did not see the appeal (ha!) in playing Banana. Steam clocked me at just seven minutes before I closed the application. I don’t really know what’s going on here. It could be just a quick way to make some money, or a joke that’s gone beyond control. It could be both. It could be neither of those things. I can’t even say with confidence that it’s the weirdest game out there. It’s just an anomaly. An anomaly with zero potassium benefit. But an anomaly all the same.