The developers of Banana, a game about clicking a Banana which has usurped Baldur’s Gate 3 and Hogwarts Legacy on Steam’s most-popular games of all time list, have insisted it’s not a scam.
A post on Discord from one of the three listed developers and co-owner of Banana, aestheticspartan, said the team had parted ways with one of its members after it emerged they were accused of being involved in a Steam scam previously. This team member has denied any involvement in a scam, saying instead an influx of money obtained through the Steam marketplace was the result of a bug.
Despite their involvement, “there is no scamming or scam going on,” aestheticspartan insisted. Banana’s gameplay literally involves clicking a banana repeatedly, but its main draw is in its dropping of Steam items which can be sold on the official marketplace. Banana gives out different bananas as its item, and clicking on the game once in a while nets players a couple per day.
Most of these items are listed for just a few cents each, meaning the players of Banana are often spending and gaining very little at a time, but this likely doesn’t matter to Steam owner Valve or the development team.
That’s because both get a cut of every marketplace sale. Valve takes 5%, to a minimum of $0.01, and the developer takes another small percentage, the exact total of which is unclear in this case, but likely follows the same conventions as Valve’s to a minimum of $0.01.
Buyers and sellers don’t see the same numbers on Steam’s community marketplace, as the seller chooses the amount and the buyer sees the total of that number plus fees. This would explain why no banana item is available for less than $0.03 — they’re likely listed at $0.01, but another $0.01 for Valve and $0.01 for the developer adds up to the $0.03 total.
These tiny numbers add up though. Using the most basic example, the plain Banana item (compared to the banana that looks like a Panda or any other obscure design), we can see how much the developer and Valve potentially make from Banana.
Steam itself features an hour-by-hour breakdown of how many of these items are sold. Using the latest full day example, June 18, 2024, an eye-watering total of 1,993,669 of this single item were sold.
Valve therefore potentially earned a total of $19,936.69 from this single Banana’s sales over a 24-hour period, a number more than likely earned by the developer, too. This standard drop is one of 81 items being sold on Banana’s community marketplace.
This is the most common item, however, so it’s being sold in larger quantities than other items. The Rainbow Banana, for example, is currently listed for around $0.75 but generally sells for less than 50 per hour instead of the thousands of the most common Banana. The most expensive item, the Crypticnana, of which only 25 exist, has been sold four times for values of more than $1,000 since June 17.
While this is a colossal price compared to the most basic Banana for the buyer and seller, Valve’s 5% means it only nets $50 per $1,000 sold on these. It’s therefore the $0.01 minimum policy affecting large quantities of low-selling items that make Valve and the developer the most money. A total of 14 items are listed at the minimum $0.03 amount, and each one sells thousands per hour.
Developer aestheticspartan’s insistence Banana isn’t a scam is therefore likely legitimate, but it’s also almost certainly earning the development team tens of thousands of dollars a day, if not more. As for why it’s so popular, developer team member Hery told Polygon Banana is a real-life “infinite money glitch.” “I do believe that the reason why it mostly caught on is because it’s a legal infinite money glitch,” Hery said. “Users make money out of a free game while selling free virtual items.”
They also admitted Banana had a bot problem early on, with only around one third of all concurrents being actual players. Whether or not that figure has changed since Banana blew up remains to be seen, though Hery said the developement team has contacted Valve for help with the issue.
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.