The grand open-world adventure Elden Ring, the electrifying fast-paced shooter Call of Duty, and the genre-changing role-playing game Baldur's Gate 3 are all currently less popular on Steam than a game about clicking bananas.
The aptly titled Banana has proven particularly appealing to the 137,817 peak concurrent gamers over the last 24 hours, placing it ninth on Steam's most-played games list. Here it sits above War Thunder, Team Fortress 2, Stardew Valley, Monster Hunter: World, EA Sports FC 24, Fallout 4, Helldivers 2, and much, much more.
"Banana is a clicker game in which you click a banana," reads its official synopsis. "In Banana you click the banana to gain even more bananas." Banana currently has a 'Very Positive' rating on Steam with 91% of players recommending it.
But why is Banana so popular? As reported by PC Gamer, it's actually an Egglike. We're not saying bananas are like eggs (bananas are technically berries), but this video game Banana is like the video game Egg, in which players click on an image of an egg repeatedly.
The draw of these games is that they give out Steam items which can be sold for Steam credit or traded. Banana gives out banana skins as its item, and clicking on the game once in a while nets players a couple per day.
Most of these skins are near worthless in terms of real-world money, estimated at fractions of a cent, but some rare ones, like a one in 100,000 Diamond Banana, is currently listed at $145. Whether or not it sells for this amount remains to be seen, however.
While some players may be looking to exploit a simple algorithm of clicking bananas to get rewarded in hard (Steam) cash, it seems many are just trading lesser bananas for fun and getting in on what appears to be somewhat of a joke. Egglikes seemingly just need a small community of players to trade back and forward, and Banana, at least so far, appears no different.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
