Irina "Zemlia" Sukhanova Interest in clicker games is gaining momentum. No sooner had Hamster Kombat faded into the background than another similar project with a catchy name — Banana — burst onto the scene, taking the lead positions on Steam. What is this title about? What is the reason for its success? Let's figure it out!
What is Banana Clicker?
Image: playground.ru
Mechanically, there is nothing special here. The main task is to tap repeatedly. With some chance, you might get not an ordinary fruit, but a special, rare one.
But what can you do with it? You can't eat this banana, nor can you store virtual fruit in the fridge. The only option is to sell it on Steam.
Yes, that's right, and the player can get real money for it, though not for the fruit itself, but for the skin you receive. The most expensive banana skin can cost several thousand dollars. This is not a joke, because Spacebanana is indeed priced this high. At the moment, users can farm about seventy unique fruits in the game.
Image: Steam
The Secret of Success
Image: steamdb.info
The principle is almost the same as in Hamster Kombat (by the way, don’t miss the actual combo that brings 5,000,000 coins) — the motivation to click on an item to get something or earn money. It has reached the point where people started creating so-called farms to earn as much as possible. Bots that automatically click on the fruit also appeared, forcing the game creators to introduce a limit. Now, a unique fruit drops every 18 hours.
A market has emerged where people put up skins for sale, others buy them to sell later at a higher price. This draws comparisons to cryptocurrency or even a financial pyramid. However, such pyramids almost always have a sad ending — they collapse, leaving people in panic and disappointment. So far, this hasn't happened, and we won't make any predictions, but just state the fact: players are clicking, getting skins, selling them.
Keeping the Audience Engaged
Image: runews24.ru
The project authors want to maintain audience interest, so new bananas will likely appear soon. Due to its wild popularity, similar titles have begun to emerge. For instance, the company 100 Cozy Games released a game called Cats, and the publisher online99 released Banana Cucumber, where you can also get items for further sale on Steam.
The Allure of Easy Money
Image: steamdb.info
The desire for easy money drives people to perform simple actions. You click, you get a reward, hence, a dose of dopamine. This is what makes it so addictive. It's no wonder the peak online presence of Banana on Steam exceeded 858,915 players.
Perhaps in the future, we will see a whole series of such games, or maybe society will quickly lose interest. Time will tell.
Main image: Ensiplay via DALL-E
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