Banana game is not the creators of the fraudulent claim because it reached number 2 on Steam

The game where you endlessly click on a banana has become a hit on Steam, but the story of one of the developers has raised the alarm.

Some parties like to argue that video games are a waste of time and shouldn’t be considered art, and sometimes it’s hard to argue with that when thousands of people are doing nothing more than clicking on a picture of a banana for fun.

Earlier this month, a game called Banana shot up the charts on Steam. A few weeks later and it’s still riding high in terms of player numbers. At the time of writing, it is the second most played game on Steam, behind only Counter-Strike 2, with a 24-hour peak of 862,508 players.

In Banana, players click on a picture of a banana and… that’s it. The main driving force behind player growth is banana drops. When you play games on Steam, you sometimes unlock items in your Steam inventory that can be sold through the marketplace for the currency in your wallet, which is why the game is so popular.

When playing Banana, players receive banana items “every three and 18 hours,” according to the store’s record. This has since fueled the entire banana market, and while most sell for mere pennies, some, such as the diamond banana, sell for $80 (£63).

As you might expect, a game completely dependent on drop sales has raised eyebrows over whether it could be a scam. This speculation was heightened after it was discovered that one of the developers was previously involved in a “Bitcoin” scam/error on the Steam market.

In a statement on Discord (via Eurogamer ), co-developer Banana Aestheticspartan announced that he had “parted ways” with a member of the team known as Theselions following discussions about his past projects.

“As you’ve all heard by now, Theselions used to be involved in a ‘Bitcoin’ scam/error on the Steam marketplace,” the statement read.

“We didn’t know about it until the recent videos started pointing it out and almost immediately we talked to the whole team about the situation. We gave him the opportunity to explain the situation to us and we know that he is showing remorse and is sorry for what happened in the past.”

The developer later claimed that there was “no scamming/fraud” going on in Banana, with the team planning to expand the title beyond its current state.

“We can’t wait to turn this game into something bigger and better than just a clicker,” the team added. ‘Please stay tuned as we have been and are still working on a large number of updates to improve the game and allow you all to do much more with bananas.’

The number of Banana players may not be what it seems. In an interview with Polygon, the developers said there is a problem with bots, with only a third of the 141,000 players recorded earlier this month being real.

While it’s unclear if this is still a problem – and the number of real players has likely increased due to the revelation – bots trying to whack free items may still make up a significant portion.

One team member, Hery, also acknowledged the main reason for the title’s growing popularity. “I believe the reason it mostly caught on is because it’s a legit ‘infinite money glitch,'” they said to the outlet. ‘Users earn money from the free game while selling free virtual items.’

While it seems more innocuous than other games that have been accused of being a scam because it’s free to download, the bigger question may be why people choose to invest so many hours playing such a repetitive “game”.

However, clicker games, also known as idle games, have become an entire subgenre, with 2013’s Cookie Clicker being the most famous example.

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