If you regularly check Steam's most-played games to see what is being talked about, you may have noticed a strange little outlier called "Banana" And I am happy to report that this game is exactly what the sign says it is

"Banana" has been climbing up the Steam charts this week, and a quick look at SteamDB shows that it peaked at 660,000 concurrent players on Saturday This is an all-time record, but it has ballooned from Friday's record of 155,000 concurrent players, which still stands at around 600,000

So why is everyone so enthusiastic about this game? (Hey, I had to include at least one banana pun Sorry if it wasn't appealing) I mean, it's because most of the players are bots This idle clicker game is a money printer If you click enough bananas, you get in-game skins, which you can then sell for real-world cash

This is a player-driven market that has been seen before in popular games like "Call of Duty" and "Counter-Strike"; one rare weapon skin in CS:GO reportedly sold for $400,000 last year Frankly, this is the first time I've seen this kind of entrepreneurial spirit come together for a simple game

Keep clicking bananas and dozens of differently decorated skins will drop into your Steam inventory Some are ridiculous little outfits, others dazzle with gems

Many of the skins are sold for pennies, but as "Banana" became popular by word of mouth, some prices jumped into the tens and hundreds of dollars One in-game skin has sold for over $1,000, Polygon reports

Because it is an idle game, it is designed to be easy enough for legitimate players to keep "Banana" going in the background and just jump in and click from time to time Unfortunately, armies of bots can ruin everyone's fun

"I think the reason it almost caught on is because it's a legitimate 'infinite money glitch,'" Hery, a member of the development team, told Polygon"

"Users make money on free games while selling free virtual items

Developers are working with Steam to crack down on the bot problem

"Unfortunately, we are currently facing some issues with botting, as the game basically consumes no resources at all from 1% of your PC, and people are abusing up to 1000 alternative accounts to get rare drops or at least large amounts of drops Hery continued

Sales of the least valuable bananas have skyrocketed along with the number of players (and possibly bots) It's hard to say exactly why, but the simple premise and meme nature of the game oozes the same "To the moon!" energy of Reddit investors and the terminal online crowd (and I say this as a member myself, so I'm not speaking behind your back) oozes the same energy My guess is that most of the new regular players are in it for the memes At least better than NFT