What is Banana and why is it so popular?

A new mysterious game called Banana just became the newest sensation on the massive gaming platform, Steam. It is a "clicker game" with an eerily simple layout and a plain gameplay of merely clicking a banana.

On Steam, Banana has amassed more than 600,000 players in just 2 months of release, skyrocketing into the top 2 of Steam's most-played games. It has overtaken the 'current players' of popular games like Dota 2, PUBG: Battlegrounds, Destiny 2, and Apex Legends. But what exactly is Banana and why is this game gaining such baffling traction?

Banana is a free-to-play game, released April 23rd on Steam. Unlike many massive titles, the developer isn't a company but is made up of four Steam users: aaladin66, Pony, Sky, and AestheticSpartan.

The game itself is very simple with only 60 MB in size. It shows an image of a banana in the center of the screen. You can click on the banana and numbers will accumulate on top of it. Players will also earn banana drops after 3 hours and 18 hours of "playing" the game. This means just clicking in between the drop hours to show that you're not idle. Players also cannot close the game as it will reset their progress.

Banana drops come in random styles and designs with various rarities. However, the mouse-clicks or your time spent in the game doesn't really affect the rarity of the drops. These banana drops cannot be used in game and will only be stored in your Steam inventory.

The various types of banana drops and their rarities can be very appealing to the collector mindset. This is especially to those who wants to show off these banana designs on their Steam profiles.

Due to the drops and demand, the trade market boomed. A vast majority of the Common designs go on sale for a minimum of $0.03 but the higher-rarity drops can go as high as hundreds of dollars. At the time of writing, the most expensive banana on the marketplace is the Crypticnana which is on sale at a mind-boggling amount of $1,096 USD.

With these rapidly rising numbers, a lot of players also join in on the booming marketplace. Players will collect banana drops and even purchase certain drops to wait for when its value rises. A seemingly easy money-making scheme.

It also has an active Discord community of more than 30,000 members that are often suggesting banana designs and drops.

Banana is certainly a game not made for actual gaming. It focuses on the marketplace and profiting off banana images that can be shown in people's Steam profiles. The concept is all-too familiar for many of us and time is surely ticking for when the fruit expires.

That sums up the basics about Banana and its increasing popularity on Steam. Keep your eyes peeled on more gaming news and updates on esports.gg!