The Banana Game May Have Spawned A New Genre Of Exploitative Titles

Many of us use SteamDB to scout out trending Steam titles, especially those with higher active player counts. A few weeks ago—just like many others—I also noticed the peculiar Banana Clicker game with hundreds of thousands of concurrent users. And lo and behold, it was an NFT-inspired fraud title that preyed on the hopes of players to rise through Steam charts. Many similar titles are now also available.

What are these strange games, and how do they differ from the others in this genre? Well, to answer it briefly, these are the most barren Clickers where you repeatedly click on an image to get points. At certain moments, players may hog rare versions of these images that can be sold to others in the marketplace using real money. They not only sully the genre but also use scummy ways to attract players.

Now, I’ve spotted over half a dozen of them with the same goals. Has Banana kick-started a new sub-genre of clicker games?

Banana-Like Games Are Technically A Scam, Just Not Literally

The clones of the game are also named after different fruits or edibles, usually—with a few exceptions. Some of these titles include Cats, Burger, Melon, Tapple, and the sort. To be fair, these new clicker entries are not like the common scams that we know about. Still, the exploitative measures used to attract players like moths cannot be denied.

Players can get rare Banana drops after clicking for a specific number of hours, which can then be bought and sold on the Steam marketplace for real money. These digital images—created by the community—have no inherent value. In other words, it’s all speculative.

For example, the prices could plummet at any time. If you’ve bought a banana for 50 USD, its value may end up falling to 5 cents after some time.

The Success Of Banana-Like Clickers Is Almost Absurd

While the clones have not been as successful as the real deal, their sudden rise to fame still shows how easy it is to manipulate gamers. Although the user counts likely contain a lot of bots that players are using to farm the digital drops. One way some have made sales is by selling the images and buying CS2 skins to further sell them off for real money. The chances of making any considerable profits are quite low, however.

A lot of players have bought expensive images but have been unable to sell even close to what they’ve paid online. At the end of the day, not many want a quirky cat image for $40 just because of artificial scarcity. These horror stories have alerted many about the dangers of these clickers, but their rise to fame still shows no signs of slowing down.

Valve Has Yet To Take Any Action

One would expect Valve to be quick about the new genre-in-the-making and take action against these games. However, we’ve heard practically nothing from the giant conglomerate. Players argue that there’s no reason for the moderators to do anything because Banana and its clones are not technically a direct scam. Those more upset also think that Valve is likely just enjoying the monetary gains behind the scenes.

Banana. Steam's 2nd most played game is a bot farm. Steam does not learn and does not care, it's getting out of hand.
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So far, the petitions and requests to take these titles down have been met with no response. It also seems like many users support and even defend these games online. That will likely change when many of them also lose a significant amount after a bad purchase.

The Future Of Steam Marketplace Looks Bleak

The Banana game and its clones show that it’s not hard to control the Steam marketplace to do scummy practices. Another thing that worries me is that scammers may create titles that are more direct in exploiting users and manipulating the marketplace if this goes on. 

All in all, we should wait and see how Valve deals with the new dilemma. I also advise everyone to avoid these titles, even if there’s little chance to make profits. At the end of the day, you’ll lose significant time and money just because of greed.