Banana - The Most Popular Game on Steam

[@jauwn]

It's pretty concerning that such a blatant cash grab has remained on the Steam store for this long, but it doesn't surprise me knowing Valve's track record. Have any of you encountered this game yet, and what are your thoughts? To be clear, I don’t really care one way or another whether this game is on Steam. If this is something you want to spend your time engaging with, then go ahead. This video just serves to explain why this game has so many players, and some potential concerns surrounding the devs past.

[@Lavalobster93]

i saw it on the marketplace one time, i almost bought a banana as a joke now im glad i didnt

[@muizzsiddique]

@@Lavalobster93 That's probably where half of their players come from.

[@eugoth4285]

I actually got wind of this game like a month or a month and a half ago and thought it was a cookie clicker like idle game. I saw some community posts about special bananas and such and never gave much thought about it and got like 15 bananas or so. The bananas were like 3 cents and I thought this would all die out within a few days after steam saw how blatant exploiting of the market it was. To my surprise this still didn't happen and they let the price of this stuff balloon to insane proportions and I'm pretty sure 99.9% of the "players" are actually bots afking for that revenue

[@WunderWulfe]

looks like NFT but keeping “”play” to earn”, lowering barrier to entry, and making effortless, boring game design even more profitable

[@lodef]

i trade tf2 items occasionally and stumbled across the game after visiting the steam marketplace. i immediately assumed it was some sort of scam and never thought about it again until watching this video. i'll give it a month before the banana economy is completely tanked.

[@zeriah]

60 MB of game for an image of a banana and a click interaction. True indicator of the level of bloat in today's game market right there.

[@efeloteishe4675]

yeah just the unity executable is like 50 mb at this point

[@alexisross9343]

Yeah, it's unity, it tags a ton of bloat in the package for "just in case" things. The size is literally just because it's a unity package.

[@jauwn]

Also they left a lot of unused assets in the files from the asset packs they used

[@8BitsPerPlay]

@@efeloteishe4675 I mean Unreal Engine is even more bloated for builds and at the moment has to use upscaling for most Unreal Engine 5 and newer games to even run at 60 FPS. Sadly a lot of game engine are becoming bloated and a lot of times the developers themselves can lower the bloat with built in engine tools, but they are too lazy to. Lot of bloat and size in games these days are devs refusing to be smart and use the tools there to fix optimization issues. Take mask and detail maps. They let you put a normal, albedo, smoothness, and more texture maps into a single texture literally lowering the file size for those textures by 5/6. When you have a way to put six textures into one, but games are reaching hundreds in gigabytes in size you know devs are just lazy at that point.

[@alexisross9343]

@@jauwn yep that'll more than do it.

[@genericmoron3008]

"thus began my efforts to reverse engineer banana" - Some farmer in Papua New Guinea like 6,800 years ago

[@annarenfold438]

It's like quick cash-grabs are destined to be related to monkeys and primates in one way or another

[@d3generate804]

we are devolving as a species

[@doomspud6302]

@@d3generate804 "Our technology has made us gods before we were even deserving of being called men."

[@Minebrawlzzz]

Really hope valve cracks down on this

[@terrariapro147]

@@Minebrawlzzz half life 3 rise of the primates

[@annarenfold438]

@@Minebrawlzzz If they don't give a shit about TF2 and the bot problem, I doubt they will remove the gazillion scam games and bloated early access games that have never been updated beyond their "playable" 0.wathever releases.

[@VendyVendy]

Remember kids, the best get-rich-quick scheme is creating a successful get-rich-quick scheme.

[@alexholker1309]

"During a gold rush, sell shovels."

[@Green_Cumulon]

Turns out the most profitable business has always been snake oil.

[@ayuballena8217]

@@alexholker1309 machinery:

[@Roland...]

@@Green_Cumulon Okay, the amount you're charging people for your items is getting downright criminal. But I'm just a talent description, I can't stop you.

[@Marky-Mark1337]

If you give me a dollar I give you a secret on getting 2 dollars, doubling your investment

[@rapdactyl]

I appreciate that "Banana might just be one of the most shameless cash-grab schemes of the year" leaves open the possibility that there could still be worse ones coming up. I love the optimism!

[@jauwn]

It's only June, after all

[@KiddCrowley]

We still have whatever Ubisoft/Bethesda/Nintendo slop to look forward to

[@Demonpumkin]

Humanity is weird

[@Mizuryryn]

*"All NFT Variant's"* - Crypto Assets > Imaginary Tokens - NFT > Crypto (slop) NFT (may risk of Rugs) - RL NFT > NFT in Real Life - NFT Stock Exchange > NFT but it costs Company stock share (no crypto) - Fungitible Token > Costs real currency, can track - NFTless NFT > Weapon Skins - NFT Cryptoless > Steam Item Store - NFTless Cryptoless > CSGO Skins - NFTless Cryptoless Customizable > Art Commissions - Diet NFT > Antique Product - Vegan NFT > Pokemon Cards - NFT-Lite > Limited Merch Products - Victorian NFT > Old Canvas Art - NFTless Cryptoless Non-Limited > Stock Image - NFTless Cryptoless Stock Exchange > Stock Share

[@Mizuryryn]

*"All NFT Variant's"* - Crypto Assets > Imaginary Tokens - NFT > Crypto (slop) NFT (may risk of Rugs) - RL NFT > NFT in Real Life - NFT Stock Exchange > NFT but it costs Company stock share (no crypto) - Fungitible Token > Costs real currency, can track - NFTless NFT > Weapon Skins - NFT Cryptoless > Steam Store - NFTless Cryptoless > CSGO Skins - NFTless Cryptoless Customizable > Art Commission - Diet NFT > Antique Product - Vegan NFT > Pokemon Cards - NFT-Lite > Limited Merch Product - Victorian NFT > Old Canvas Art - NFTless Cryptoless Non-Limited > Stock Image - NFTless Cryptoless Stock Exchange > Stock Share

[@fadedmans]

So, the dev was banned for participating in a marketplace pump and dump scheme, and yet, they were still allowed to publish Banana on Steam and make all of these items while having sole control on the supply of them? How in the hell does that work?

[@werbizzy]

methinks its because steam no doubt is profiting off of this too based on the section describing who gets % amount of money from each nanner sale though idk, maybe gaben has millions of rare bananas in his inventory as we speak

[@fadedmans]

@@werbizzy Fair point, but it's a bad look for Valve and Steam when someone with a shady history can just pay $100 to publish a cash-grab asset flip like this without any audits.

[@MrFearlesskiller]

@@werbizzy Pretty wrong and you can post basically any game on steam nowadays

[@Rootiga]

its not even the same account, the account is friends with a lot of the same people and in the same groups though. they would have to prove its the same person or his new account would have to violate the rules in the same way

[@sci7zo]

@@fadedmans yeah but right now steams only competition is basically Epic, Origin, Gamepass, and Uplay. They aren't at risk of losing users to the competition

[@hungryhedgehog4201]

knowing that TF2 has more bots than players for the purpose of farming items I wonder how high the rate is here. In the end this is basically CSGO boiled down to it`s final form.

[@JoSephGD]

there's 0 fluctuation in the player counts here... it's all bots

[@635574]

Finally someone understnads this is the crushed remains of taking all gameplay out of CSGO.

[@walesbkb]

If valve wasn't private and tried to flog their stocks with those numbers, they'd be done for it. They know full well it's all bots.

[@miciso666]

cant believe i actually made quite some cash playing tf2... and most of it came from asking my friends for the items they got. as they didnt like it. or knew it had value. i think i made like 60 bucks a month no joke. most from selling rare items. and trading items for other steam games. i didnt pay for portal 2 :D

[@MariaFloresRopeLover]

@@miciso666 That sounds like you are a terrible friend and someone nobody wold want to associate with nowadays lol

[@deniskhafizov6827]

DOOM: 2.39 megabytes Banana: 60 megabytes

[@acorngnome]

Super Mario Bros. is only 40 kilobytes. Yes, KILOBYTES.

[@deniskhafizov6827]

@@acorngnome al my BK0010 games fit into 16 KiB

[@cerulity32k]

​@@acorngnome And then the Atari 2600 games had to fit in 4KB. With only 128 BYTES of RAM.

[@HandyDandyHandium]

@@acorngnome a screenshot of super mario bros is bigger than the game itself

[@acorngnome]

@@HandyDandyHandium 😳

[@Grasslehoff]

Imagine running your 1500 watt monster of a gaming machine for 8 hours while you're at work to receive 5-10 cents an hour farming "banana". If you don't see the problem yet, I wish you the best of luck in life.

[@terrafair3248]

Another 3 hours and you can buy 1 egg

[@Grasslehoff]

... and then the world

[@48lanlan]

well thats what people said about bitcoin miners 15 years ago.

[@Grasslehoff]

@@48lanlan try doing that with your home setup at today's rates. I promise you the return will be similar

[@RipRLeeErmey]

​@@48lanlan ... Bad timing? Crypto went bust 2 years ago after all the pump and dump scams came and went. Even Bitcoin is basically worthless due to how hard it fluctuates.

[@AmyStrikesBack]

Behold! Nftless nfts!

[@jauwn]

Diet NFT

[@apchistuz]

Non cryto NFT

[@diegodankquixote-wry3242]

Fungible Token

[@SheFartedOnMyBalls]

NFT't

[@megapussi]

tokens

[@Duutch]

It's one of those games that just attract the most annoying people steam, the type to fake hundreds of thousands of achievements, copy paste cat reviews, pay graphic designers for animated "cool" images with their username for their profiles, etc. Lazy cashgrab achievement game #5000000

[@jauwn]

It's an ant trap for the terminally online

[@Likemea]

omg i hate those kind of people, really feels like dead internet theory

[@ChesterManfred]

Couldn't have described it any better

[@selectionn]

the level 500 steam account type of people, for sure.

[@ayylmao9094]

st4ck?

[@seneca983]

11:22 "there doesn't appear to be anything unscrupulous" Right when you're scrolling past an ahegao banana.

[@lvbboi9]

*MY EYEEEES!!!*

[@seneca983]

@@lvbboi9 "Anata no banana puni puni da ne!"

[@MoweepOwO]

look how many reactions its got too! xD

[@The-S-H3lf-Eater]

Horny People Have No Rights.

[@MegaHellstrike]

Please remember kids: It costs your family more money in energy to keep your PC running while you're at school than you can make selling fucking fruit JPEGs.

[@Starworshipper]

They're PNG's.

[@Eivissabelle]

@@Starworshipper your genius, it's almost frightening!

[@SahilVerma-wm6ie]

How do you know that? Pretty sure even browsing yt would take more resources than displaying a banana png with a button

[@thecaptem]

@@SahilVerma-wm6ie Talking about electricity not pc resources

[@todesziege]

@@SahilVerma-wm6ie You're underestimating how inefficiently one can display a banana.

[@SARankdirectorMinecraft]

Babe wake up, someone reinvented NFTs

[@senkuo5039]

i was thinking the exact same thing

[@crd716]

NFTs but controlled by the developer/valve lol

[@Readesu]

Literally what cs and tf2 items are. Not new.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@Readesu Well items in CS and TF2 can actually be used in a game that's worth playing, this truly emulates NFTs by being completely useless.

[@anemiapwns1]

NFTs for babies.

[@bored.random]

16:09 offtopic but i wish someone made a video about the utter state of steam reviews right now, all of them are “LIKE THIS CAT GIVE AWARD GUYS 😂😂😂” or “Give me likes and My baIIs will drink lemonade”

[@jauwn]

Nah I agree they are horrible

[@Zak_How]

Off topic reviews and nonsense spam reviews are annoying af

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

i laughed too hard at "balls will drink lemonade"

[@some-replies]

What's worse, the people leaving those reviews or the idiots giving them awards and keeping them at the top of the review page?

[@bored.random]

@@some-replies Probably the people spamming them, you can see all the reviews someone has left on Steam and I see people copypasting the same copypasta 4-16 times. There's even one copypasta that goes "I have one year left to live and this game will forever be with me" that seems to get ~30+ awards from each time I've seen it.

[@bobafettjr85]

I heard about this last night and thought "Oh it's cookie clicker with bananas" but then there was no upgrades to buy to auto click the banana. Then I thought, "well at least you can change the banana skin" only to find out the skins don't even work with gameplay. Finally I saw one Steam review that explained how it's a scam. The developer responded to it saying it's not a scam because different currencies have different values.

[@jauwn]

I saw that comment too and while the developer is correct it's obviously a non-answer and does not defend the legitimacy of their game

[@NeostormXLMAX]

@@jauwndoesnt matter cope and seethe, the game industry is rotting and a game like this is a fuck you to steam and tripple a

[@sireffortlessgarbage7922]

@NeostormXLMAX I see, it’s like the grindcore of video games

[@arturoaguilar6002]

@@NeostormXLMAX So, giving $5,000 dollars daily to Steam is a fuck you to Steam? Yeah, someone is coping here and it definitely isn't Jauwm.

[@AstralAva]

@NeostormXLMAX How exactly is this a "fuck you" to Steam when they also profit off of every banana sale too? If anything, this game is just feeding in to everything you hate about tripple A gaming even more than other cash grab games. Stuff like Genshin is encouraging bad habits, sure. But at least the things you obtain in that game have an impact on the enjoyment of the game you're playing. This? This is just collecting pointless png's that will be usless in a month. All this game is doing is showing the tripple A industry that they don't even need to make actual content for the micro transactions that they make. Just make speculative PNG's that might increase in price.

[@slaysindutch1938]

Concerning that it's a cash grab: yes. Concerning that people feed it: more so

[@taeromann5929]

It's not just a cash grab, it's a full blown scam at this point

[@yunekoVT]

@@taeromann5929 a scam would entail lying and decieving not people making poor investment decicions else the stock market is a scam

[@andrewferguson6901]

It's basically just steam marketplace in its purest form. Really does a great job highlighting some of the shortcomings and avenue for abuse

[@KDYinYouTube]

​@@taeromann5929scam when nobody scam.

[@emilyofjane]

For *tens* of dollars. Even the rare bananas are worth less than minimum wage lmfao

[@jauwn]

That’s what makes this whole thing so silly to me. The $50+ bananas have almost no volume.

[@pott3r]

actually there are $1000+ bananas on the market. not sure if it's possible to receive them in-game.

[@WaffleAbuser]

It really is quite… bananas

[@TarynBeeswax]

This is like Placid Plastic Duck but instead of getting a cute little duck every couple minutes, who bobs around and interacts with your other ducks, this just gives you a worthless png of a banana

[@antifinance]

This is like Nothing, but Nothing really does have nothing do with steam market and trades.

[@moosenman]

At least with PPD I can watch things happen, change camera angles, click on the ducks for them to quack, etc. and I don’t think there’s the money aspect besides purchasing dlc for different ducks which I’m more than fine with.

[@gusty7153]

love ppd

[@itsghxst]

i luv that game

[@Eavontide]

i mean i agree but since it's on the market and actually able to be sold it's quite literally worth infinitely more than a duck in ppd?

Why are there more developers than classes in the code of the game

[@oliver_twistor]

Pair programming. ;)

[@leophyte9663]

@@oliver_twistor *Pear programming

[@DemiTF2]

​@@leophyte9663Banana programming*

[@MadManPhoenix]

How many devs does it take to screw in a light bulb. I won't say the answer.

[@phillipanselmo8540]

@@MadManPhoenix they prefer the dark

[@Bubby79]

“waiter, can i have less gameplay in my csgo?”

[@RipRLeeErmey]

"Waiter, waiter! I think there's a bit too much gameplay on my CS:GO. Could you ask the chef to maybe take some off the top?" "Why most certainly! Anything for the customer, sir!" _Is presented with Banana_ "Oh yeah, NOW we're talking! Thanks, waiter!"

[@BaneHydra]

At last. Fungible tokens.

[@jauwn]

literally xD

[@tomorrowisyesterday3215]

Funny story, i win giveaway on tf2 third party website, i sell it for couple bucks to buy DBD. Few years later, prices 10x more than originaly. prices i sell. And quantity are very low, now i regret selling it for cheap for quick Buck. Sorry for bad English

[@fusrosandvich3738]

@@tomorrowisyesterday3215 Never feel bad about selling something early, it's for the best you did so. Especially if you got enough from it to buy something you wanted instead. Money you "could have made" is not real. Especially now that tf2 is basically made of nothing but bots, the likelihood of you actually selling it for the price you see listed is incredibly low.

[@mildlyconcerning]

This is the funniest thing I've seen all day

[@weegeequeviucoisas9854]

​@@tomorrowisyesterday3215don't worry about it, these price increases are from artificial inflation due to the trading bot crisis, you probably wouldn't have many any more money off them in the first place.

[@FlamingGnats]

These ironic meme games getting all the fake positive reviews trying to be funny have long been an annoyance to me. People are stupid.

[@jauwn]

They need to go touch grass

[@todesziege]

Meanwhile solid good games can't get a handful of reviews.

[@jackhazardous4008]

I always report reviews that are just memes and ACII art

[@Bizerro2000]

it's ridiculously easy to just make a effortless game and make thousands off from it because of what the average steam reviewer thinks is funny

[@Fragenzeichenplatte]

@@jackhazardous4008 Me, too. Don't know if Valve does anything about it, though. And I can only report a review once because after that the report icon disappears...

[@PurpleXVI]

I think this is actually one of your best videos, I love how in-depth it is, with both taking a poke at the actual code, digging into the devs and trying to understand the "market" as it is. Good stuff!

[@PowerPakGames]

Oh this is going to explode into thousands of somehow-even-less-effort-clones and flood Steam isn't it?

[@jauwn]

Already has

[@dagda1180]

Oh, hey PowerPak! I think I remember you.

[@onceuponatimeonearth]

well well well look who's here looking at banana's

[@Jackfromshack]

We need gaming crash

[@DeadFishFactory]

I'm sure the bananas for 3 cents aren't really being bought, only sold. My conspiracy theory is that the developer will buy a random number of bananas a day for 3 cents as a means to keep the Steam market purchase history active. That way people think there is an active market.

[@ogueyratogeyrat7448]

yup he use that tactic

[@WOMFT]

This situation is bananas

[@isabellamorris7902]

B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

[@Breadbrowser]

Lol

[@T0HK]

HAHHAHAHASHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAQHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[@Montgumerz]

Respect.

[@McPoshua]

Buh-dum-chhh

[@dado__]

Funnily enough, some dev copied this with "Burger", except that there's no drops, no marketplace, and the number persists. They're basically just using it as a meme way to promote their upcoming (non-NFT, looks actually good) cooking simulator. I "played" it for a laugh and didn't even realize Banana was a thing until now.

[@roxinim6479]

SO BURGER WAS A COPY? oh man :( it's so much better

[@ギコ]

@@roxinim6479 why does it matter lol it's not a copy in any way except to parody

[@The-S-H3lf-Eater]

Finally Moral Compass

[@Gravity_studioss]

This is like that one Luigi meme "She sells sea shells on the sea shore"

[@1TitanicFan1]

we went from primates buying images of other random monkeys to now buying images of the bananas said monkeys would like to eat. What an incredibly good use of people's time.

[@Idran]

you forgot the egg stage (stegge)

[@1TitanicFan1]

@@Idran True, it appears that the egg comes before the chicken

[@jiggerypokery2962]

banana gets more playtime than egg. Sexism at it's worse.

[@scvpest]

Seggsism

[@chillerwhale1655]

You know what would be really cool is if there was some sort of public ledger so you could at least verify the supply and rarity of nanas as well as who was buying and selling them. Someone should invent that.

[@jauwn]

Like a chain? Of blocks?

[@stereo-soulsoundsystem5070]

No. BANANA CHAIN

[@t.m.2415]

The amount of money Steam made through providing money laundering services has to be insane.

[@gordonfreeman1163]

That's free market for ya

[@adampoliak9036]

brother steam is top 5 most imoral companies itw but search up whats money laundering bcs this isnt it

[@rashidisw]

Laundering services, imply there something dirty that requires the services. But in this case it was simply fools with money, scam? yes; but money need to be laundered? not really.

[@spammus1]

@@rashidisw Criminal organizations use this kind of games to launder money for sure. They do it with Spotify and Apple Music, doing it this way on Steam is even easier and most likely safer.

[@PhishyBusiness]

so we’re just using words that we don’t know the meaning to?

[@Fanaticalight]

can't wait to see someone's steam profile in the next year and see a wall of bananas as their inventory showcase

[@TorQueMoD]

Great video! I'm shocked Valve is even allowing this game to stay on Steam. I thought games that farm marketplace items were against the rules.

[@k4pn]

If I was 11 with no debit card I would probably be grinding this rn

[@Slaat1]

hahaha for real

[@empresscarrie6230]

absolutely, i figured out the exact tf2 update time and had fast internet and my first thought was crafting two #1s. i actually did craft two #1s, the exact update i set out to do it. sold them and felt like mark zuckerberg. regret it now. also got a ton of people trying to hack my steam account, hundreds a day. don’t miss that.

[@hyenawithgun]

Animal Well (a vast and detailed metroidvania with an array of interesting puzzles and secrets to unlock): 34mb Banana: 60mb

[@mhoang2006]

Animal well mentioned 🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@LJCG777]

It's like if Halo 2 and Halo 3 met and had a baby 👶

[@armorhide406]

Animal Well was optimized. Banana's dev left unused assets and bloat

[@deletedTestimony]

ANIMAL WELL IS 34MB?!!

[@nerdatello]

@@deletedTestimony i was just as confused, looked it up and can confirm it is 34-40mb. wtf 😭

[@Grisha123]

If only real life bananas costed 3 cents

[@OsirusHandle]

they are in malasia and borneo

[@OsirusHandle]

checkout All The Fruits channel for many types of IRL banana

[@strippinheat]

Just a reminder that the only people making money during a gold rush as the guys selling the pickaxes. The developers are the pickax sellers.

[@wolfetteplays8894]

That’s not strictly true. Some people were known to make money off grabbing the gold.

[@Pihsrosnec]

@@wolfetteplays8894 yooo it's wolfette

[@loiloiloi6]

@@wolfetteplays8894 Yeah same thing with crypto and NFTs. The people who come up with it get omega rich, people who time it right get rich, and most of the people just lose money.

[@ccricers]

Are we in a pickaxe rush then?

[@wolfetteplays8894]

@@Pihsrosnec heyyyy

[@Villain_in_Glasses]

"Peer-to-peer banana trades", the 21st century everyone.

[@gabrielsantosbastos5257]

Peel-to-Peel

[@voidimperial1179]

Peer-to-pee;r

[@antoniolum1506]

The descendants of Apes have really become sophisticated as of late huh... Just wait till they start implementing laws to regulate unsolicited banana leading to trades on the black market.

[@BackpackComics]

Crazy to think how easy it is to print money now a days. Even crazier to see what people will buy. Awesome job covering the game. You said making a video on it contributes to the issue but I actually believe that this helps those unknowing not download the game or waste their time. Great video as always jauwn! :)

[@uncleweirdbeard86]

There was a thing in Unturned that was a sign that said "Banana 49.95". I got the banana shirt and its still on sale for that price on my store front

[@TheResidence.mp4]

Unturned mentioned 🥳

[@KenSG-jz2zn]

​@@TheResidence.mp4UNTURNED MENTIONED RAHHHHH, WHAT THE FUCK IS A GOOD ECONOMY🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

[@OtherAxoltol]

Imagine you’re on Wall Street and you’re a serious business man. Now you see a digital Banana making more worth than your average stocks

[@andrefasching1332]

wall street? Does anybody really visit physical stock exchanges anymore?

[@selectionn]

in reality the money can only be used on steam, so its almost entirely worthless. the dev doesnt make much money because of the steam market revenue split, and the fact that very few people are buying bananas.

[@fusrosandvich3738]

@@selectionn People sell steam accounts, which is where the actual income is from.

[@aminulhussain2277]

@@selectionn Fairly certain the dev gets real money from their share of the purchases.

[@irohn]

Here's the thing that many people forget and probably why because Valve hasn't done anything yet: in order to unlock the Steam Market you need to spend 5 bucks with your account, so in practise only the bots that generate rare enough bananas will be worth the "investment" and then the Steam store will also get those 5 bucks. This isn't Valve's first rodeo with item farming

[@enderkatze6129]

The worst part of this piece of waste is that you don't have a Higher chance of getting rare bananas by actually clicking

[@HexFemboy]

It's literally just a speculative market that uses a bare bones clicker as a way to get on the Steam platform. It's frustrating because even if it was shit, if there was an actual GAME somewhere in there, it would make sense. But it's so transparently exploitative that I don't even know how they get away with it.

[@boop004]

@@HexFemboy is this the gaming industry dying?

[@filipe4134]

@@HexFemboyThey probably don’t get away with it, Steam just makes a fuck ton of money out of it too so they don’t care.

[@Mikko-Maggie-More]

What I learned: • Do you see banana man • Hopping over on the white hot sand • Here he come with some for me • Freshly taken from banana tree • Banana man me want a ton • Give me double and a bonus one • Give me more for all me friends • This banana flow never end

[@MsYvie]

• Tonight we dance around de flame • Then we get to play de spirit game • Spirit names we shout out loud • Shake de thunder from de spirit cloud

[@4storyboss]

• OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH BANANAAAAA

[@net6406]

Those are indeed great conclusions

[@angelhood101]

​@@CrabO2 • Do you want a banana? • (Do you want a banana?) • Peel it down and go mm-mm-mm-mm, • Do you want a banana? • (Do you want a banana?) • Dis banana for you!

[@BlisaBLisa]

no banana make you go insane

[@GumshoeClassic]

We found Master Kohga's new side-gig. Jokes aside, what gets me is the profiles of the people behind it. I mean.... "German by birth. West-German by God's grace."? If this offers any clues as to that person's humor, I can't help but imagine someone incredibly obnoxious being the owner of that account.

[@queenofcookie3299]

I once saw someone put “blue blood” in their bio. He was exactly the kind of person that that kind of bio would make you believe

[@Dr.W.Krueger]

Hinter den Feindmächten: der ewige Wessi

[@u.i.shaggy2301]

This hurts my feelings man. I know some indie devs who busting their asses off to create a good game and only getting like couple thousand players. Meanwhile some dogshit like this getting hundreds and thousands of concurrent players.

[@dagda1180]

I haven't checked yet, but considering its meteoric growth, I'm pretty sure it's just bots.

[@Krexel]

I'm 90% sure it's mostly bots.

[@xaf15001]

You could argue that it's not even comparable. Yeah, that's a lot of installs, but I'd say it's not even a game. It's like comparing games to Paint Studio Clip, just different type of app.

[@tomburress4928]

One of the developers has recently admitted that only about a third (possibly even less now) of the players are actual humans. The rest are bots

[@joshiemah]

It’s a genius idea and it gets rewarded. Indie devs are just working on their passion projects. Also 2k players active is not a bad number. Classic "work smarter not harder" in effect here.

[@hello-xm5il]

Watched the spiffing brit's video on this yesterday and I was thinking the whole time, 'this feels like a Jauwn video.'

[@jauwn]

Yeah I saw his video got uploaded right as I was finishing recording my voiceover and I was kind of worried but his analysis was really surface level and missed the very important fact that this isn't the first time these guys have done this

[@electricindigoball1244]

@@jauwn Honestly I think this would have been a great opportunity for a collab as it would make it possible to combine his massive reach with your analysis.

[@Jokoko2828]

@@jauwn Just because someone else made a video doesn't mean they own the rights to that topic, if you wanna do a video on the dumb banana scam you're well within your rights to do so.

[@chilfang2422]

@@Jokoko2828 yea and a burger king can open across the street from a mcdonalds. Nothing is stopping them but marketing can get weird

[@jauwn]

@@electricindigoball1244 I don't watch his channel so I don't have any desire to do a collab

[@fbarb1134]

"Dad i got a job" "Nice son whats the job you got?" "bananas."

[@SomeCanine]

Keeping the game open for random banana reward is a genius way to manipulate the top user list. Doesn't cost the dev anything and they get tons of people playing.

[@Jmcgee1125]

This is, quite literally, a manufactured economic bubble. It's honestly kinda funny. Valve needs to crack down.

[@biigsmokee]

Valve needs to crack down on something giving them free income Hmmmmmmmmmmm

[@TheResidence.mp4]

For once, I have to say that we as a race need to stop being idiots sometimes

[@yamm7937]

If TF2 taught us anything it's that Valve looooves manufactured economic bubbles. It's not going anywhere.

[@Jmcgee1125]

@@yamm7937 At least TF2 (and CS2) items have cosmetic value, ridiculously high as some might be.

[@jackskudlarek3138]

​@biigsmokee its easy to say that in this day and age too. I remember when valve had dignity and would pass on a quick buck if it meant return customers.

[@DaToxicJay]

Reminds me of a Roblox Game called Sol's RNG which is essencially the same thing and has like 20K-50K players a day

[@JustinKoenigSilica]

Disgusting that valve let's shit like this exist, at all.

[@irontownpictures9283]

Well they do ignore the bot problem in Team Fortress 2, because the bots are still almost 90% of active users. And they make money. A lot

[@bobhill-ol7wp]

Valve has supported children gambling for years, how can anyone be surprised lol

[@Leadlobotamist]

If Valve had it their way, mods would be microtransactions, which Valve seems to still be trying to find a loophole around since this issue crops up every two or three years. This shit isn't really surprising considering how much backlash the original Steam Greenlight had. This was only inevitable. Steam kind of became the Amazon of Video games but instead of aliexpress knockoffs costing 6x the price we get unity asset flips with either bitcoin miners or some kind of exploit.

[@est1569]

Not surprising

[@This-Was-Sparta]

Valve employees when they realise cooking themselves dinner every night could be considered treadmill work: 😱😭

[@Pihutihutihutijay]

"Unlike some items on the steam marketplace, banana's are considered a commodity" This killed me. I think I have had enough internet.

[@kidofthecentury77]

I'm having flashbacks from 15 years ago with TF2's Idle program...

[@fntthesmth423]

This situation seems to be a real slip-up on valve's part. Makes their platform completely una-peel-ing!

[@iamjustkiwi]

+Accurate summary +Puns Good comment

[@gabrielsantosbastos5257]

-no random crits

[@realPurpleOrb]

​@@gabrielsantosbastos5257Comment no longer good

[@Fresh_Knight]

It’s funny that they made nfts without needing any of the “useful” web 3 features

[@table2.0]

Things are only truly worth what others are willing to pay for them. Why would anyone buy the bananas if everyone is playing with the goal of also selling bananas?? Why would you spend money on something you know is worthless when you’re trying to sell that very sane thing?

[@OsirusHandle]

capitalism moment

[@concerningindividual]

It's pretty simple, a lot like stocks. The more people put money in, the more money is made from selling, the amount of people giving this game attention is *ABSURDLY* large, so profit is probable. Unfortunately stuff like this has the yield of municipal bonds, with the additional risk for everything to suddenly go up in flames and become worthless

[@table2.0]

@@concerningindividual ok, but consider: stocks are actually tied to legitimate business that generate revenue in the real world through goods and services. They can be worth having, as having a lot of stocks for a business can even give you sway in the company’s practices itself, or at least earn you money based on your investment into the company. When the stocks are in high demand due to the company being more desirable or profitable, you can sell and trade stocks for a profit of what you bought them for. It at least makes SOME semblance of sense. There is an impact, it can be tangible, like the GameStop fiasco. But speculative markets for the sake of manufactured speculation like nfts or this game are literally worse than useless and only could ever make an individual money if someone else is dumb enough to buy the useless digital asset from them. All the while the only winners are the devs getting some commission off it all. The people who put money into this game’s PNGs are more brain dead than NFT bros because NFTs at least pretended to be worth something to people or offer perks, these bananas are literally just cheap PNGs the creators probably don’t even own the original image of. The way to kill this business is to just stop buying from the scamy idiots selling the PNGs, but no, some people are just too dumb to not give in to ineffective get rich quick schemes

[@KairuHakubi]

I feel like everyone has just forgotten how economy works. Considering that we're flat-out calling anti-capitalist things 'capitalism' now, and capitalist things 'communism,'... it's safe to say the liberal education system is taking its brainwashing job quite seriously

[@Pomfwall]

The fact that the scale of available users has hit a point where you can make anything like this, let alone make money off it, is personally more upsetting to me than the product exsiting. It's a sad result of a bigger problem.

[@jauwn]

true, people have nothing better to do and this brainrot is somehow the best they can find.

[@BLET_55artem55]

​@@jauwn"What's better than getting money while rotting your brain tho?"

[@alex_zetsu]

Hey at east it's not crypto or NFGs

[@BLET_55artem55]

@@alex_zetsu it's worse

[@henrynelson9301]

@@alex_zetsuit’s NFTs but through steam and not requiring people to buy crypto, I don’t see how that’s better aside from not destroying the environment

[@thatoneguy5856]

This feels like the dev is going to update this with a virus

[@megapussi]

Why would they do that? This is basically a free money printer, their singular goal right now should be to keep things and lowkey so they dont lose it. People dont just put viruses on shit for no reason, especially not in such an obvious way as on steam.

[@tomorrowisyesterday3215]

Surprise update

[@Eymentemür-v1u]

Nah the income is 2 good... They cant lose the money Farm that easily

[@selectionn]

just put a bitcoin miner in easily excusable high gpu load because "im just a small indie developer, I dont know how to optimize my game" and most little timmys playing this game wont notice. Or just make the miner stop when task manager is open.

[@finkamain1621]

@@selectionn I wouldn't be surprised if it already is because the game wants you to have it open for a while. It's either a miner or it's copying files off your drive

[@splitsee2526]

not surprised if half of the playerbase of the game were sols rng players 💀

[@saul4265]

True

[@manzanito3652]

You mean gambling addicts?

[@Simplebutsandy]

Do people still use Steam marketplace for money laundering?

[@jauwn]

Oh yeah for sure

[@FittZone.]

Can confirm

[@Gnomable]

The fan made bananas actually look kinda neat. It's a bummer that energy is going into this rather than anything else.

[@egel7736]

They do, but the majority of them feature stolen photographs and artwork. I kinda hope the developer tries to sell these for real, because that'd open them up for legal action.

[@Byzz2077]

@@egel7736 they already are selling bananas containing stolen artwork

[@TPLS2]

Saying a bushel of banana instead of a bunches of bananas makes the bananaphone Raffi in me angy.

[@alabasterwilliams5329]

As an old asshole that cut his teeth on the NES, this entire situation confuses and infuriates me. Why does money have to fuck everything?

[@ninakuup21]

I wouldn't say it fucked anything in this case, the game's not on the nose at all and only victims are impressionable children. If you have more than 2 brain cells it is very easy to ignore the game.

[@Bluelimesuxcom]

@@ninakuup21 you can ignore it until every game becomes just like this 👍

[@Waspinmymind]

Capitalism

[@Noordledoordle]

I mean, the 80s was also the arcade era, where lots of games were made intentionally hard to farm quarters from bored kids. And there's always been shovelware - it just needed a bit more upfront investment to get out the door. Money's always caused bad practices. Nature of the beast.

[@g76agi]

@@Bluelimesuxcom overreacting much?

[@erikaz1590]

I do agree that kids would definitely go into this to get some free money. When I was younger and steam cards suddenly shot up in price because of a summer event, I immediately grinded for and cashed out every trading card I could and got at least $15. Which for a jobless kid in the middle of Steam Summer Scale is gold!

[@necrotafeio]

in what world o you live where steam cards cost more than 0.15

[@erikaz1590]

@@necrotafeio It was a magical time. You had to be there to believe it! You could sell trading cards for $1-3 dollars at the time! Multiple that by like 5 cards a game for your entire library, and you could make a fairly decent amount of pocket change, combined with steam summer deals!

[@redacted4488]

@@necrotafeio i don’t think you have really collected or traded cards much. When i used to collect them, i had some as expensive as $1.20 per card, as well as foil cards. i got like $120 for selling half my cards

[@necrotafeio]

@@redacted4488 most expensive i sold was a 10$ foil

[@OsirusHandle]

you could have gotten a real job and earned more probably

[@juzeus9]

*you forgot money laundering, and/or stealth payoffs for criminals*

[@Dargos_L]

"Games don't need Blockchain. Steam marketplace already have all the features necessary to sell/buy an in-game item" "Oh, really?"

[@shaunroberts2037]

So, it almost seems like someone saw how certain bots are idle farming items in TF2 and decided to make a whole "GAME" based around this same process Atleast that's my theory since the nature and scale of TF2's idle bot problem was exposed not too long ago

[@emperorfaiz]

This issue has existed over a decade.

[@jeice13]

Most of the people "playing" this are losing money anyway because it doesnt seem like it even pays for the electricity it uses

[@rgenc42721]

Nah you don't get it. It's their parents' money. That means it's free money. What do you mean, "pay for electricity"?

[@jeice13]

@@rgenc42721 in a lot of cases but im sure there are some adults doing this too. Dont overestimate human intelligence

[@friedtoaster4059]

Also leaving your device on for a long time does a lot more damage than you think. You would need a replacement in like 2 years

[@tbounds4812]

@@friedtoaster4059 my rtx 2060 ran non stop for like 2 years but then i started looking after it and another 2 years later its still being used daily no issues

[@FilthyHyena]

@@friedtoaster4059 That is not at all how that works, lmfao. There's corporate devices that never go down for years at a time. You cause more wear on something turning it on and off in all technicality than you do at constant idle. Constant load, sure, but this game is not constant load and could be ran on a raspberry pi.

[@robertkarnick1286]

The most shocking reveal to me is that PUBG's official title on steam is "Player Unknown's Battlegrounds: Battlegrounds"

[@1SSJA]

Lmfao

[@leoromeli7611]

@Rumbling-zy3dg L

[@lucascampbell8521]

Turning your computer off at night will probably net you more money in saved electricity cost than leaving an autoclicker on in Banana ever could

[@thescarf926]

You don't even have to leave the game running. Just click once in a while, turn off your pc and the next time you open the game you'll get a few bananas. So I don't really see your point.

[@lucascampbell8521]

@@thescarf926 I haven't played it, I assumed you needed to keep the game on

[@R_E_D22]

@@thescarf926 did you not watch the video he clearly states to be considered active you have to click every 3 hours and you do have to leave your pc on

[@R_E_D22]

@@lucascampbell8521 you do and you have to click every 3 hours to be considered active to get drops

[@WickedFader]

This is a fantastic deep dive into what's going on, without false accusations just to prove a point that it's a net negative for the world. You did prove the cancer that it is, in a very respectable way, and much appreciated. Valve may do nothing to stop this because people could trace the problems to their monetization of CS2 without very big leaps. But it also speaks to larger problems of Steam, and larger problems of the economy as a whole. Much appreciated review!

[@pikmin_79]

What is up with modern Valve? They are letting scam games on Steam and they are leaving their own games to rot. What's next? Games with malware?

[@Xyler94]

I'll tell ya, people complained that Valve were curating their store, so they opened the floodgates. Valve does not really care, as long as it's not illegal. They get a cut from all sales on Steam, including community market sales Want this to end? Don't encourage games like Banana

[@jauwn]

@@Xyler94 I do think that Valve probably will ban these guys since the lead dev is ban evading + he's done this kind of scheme before. But yeah, as long as something makes money, Valve really doesn't care

[@Xyler94]

@@jauwn oh for sure, but Valve was put into a reactive state by developer and gamer backlash decades ago, so now this is how it has to be. I was just replying to why Valve are letting games like this in. It's simply because Valve no longer curates their store due to demand.

[@hugh2861]

something something treadmill work

[@pikmin_79]

@@Xyler94 I do wish stores were curated more. It's like the Wild West of junk games for most online gaming stores nowadays

[@lucyarisato6850]

The word ‘banana’ doesn’t even feel real anymore.

[@admiraltonydawning3847]

I remember when it was a hidden code to skip tutorial in Magicka.

[@Queen_Cnidarian]

Tbh, I legit thought that this game was popular because it was a funny meme game. I'm shocked this was an elaborate money making scheme.

[@JuniAku]

I can’t even blame the devs if that many idiots are downloading and “playing” banana. I hate that greed and stupidity has slithered its way into gaming. Everything really sucks now.

[@Dread_2137]

What's funny to me, the idiots here are mostly russians, scammed by Germans of all people 😂

[@ameliamay5246]

bagholding a bushel of bananas is such a ridiculous phrase lmao. wtf is even happening anymore

[@tmerttumer]

I was just looking for what the actual fuck is banana and ended up here... hands down mate! what a content!

[@lamMeTV]

Man if I knew that you could just vomit items to player's inventories I couldve done this myself ...

[@Tepid24]

"Nothing unscrupulous or shifty appears to be going on" *ahegao-banana slides into view*

[@chadschmaltz9790]

Just saw that part. I'm dissapointed but not entirely surprised.

[@FxTR22]

You forgot to mention, running pc cost money, the electrical bill doesn't pay itself...

[@mr.smileytm]

Lol I recognize the background of that cybernana from a WallpaperEngine wallpaper I used to have. If that art isn't up for free use it's probably stolen.

[@sixexgames]

It's quite impressive that they could do all this without bLoCKchaIn TEchnoLogY

[@scientificthesis]

I think Steam's marketplace might count as a form of blockchain

[@marwan7614]

@@scientificthesis Nah i think it's just a digital market, No blockchain technology involved .

[@ferociousfeind8538]

​@scientificthesis Steam would collapse under its own energy and performance requirements if it used something as energy-intensive and, for lack of a better term, _single-threaded_ as a blockchain to store the many, many, many transactions and account inventories. It's an actually reasonable data structure on the inside

[@joseluispcr]

my friends devs are making joke about "while you are dyng for work there is someone making a banana"

[@gamesleuth6254]

11:06 yeah, ripping straight from Voices of the Void “End” signal and slapping onto banana with 0 contributions to MrDrNose smells not very legal

[@Asas_TV]

What do you mean? dragging a png onto a banana is hard work and makes it original dO nOt StEaL.

[@ImJustBag]

*The Evil But yeah, I agree.

[@enderkatze6129]

"Lass ich sliden" sounds like German slang for "i'll let it slide" to me

[@jauwn]

It is

[@enderkatze6129]

@@jauwn i'm Not quite Up to Date with Slang Here in Germany, i'm Just annoyed it's mostly english words with little to No changes

[@ouchouchouch]

@@enderkatze6129 Reg dich nicht auf Bro, macht k1 sinn! Lass es einfach sliden 🤙

[@snoozlewoozle]

A game i got into was "the button". Same idea, just click and get put on the leaderboard. The gimmick was that every time you clicked, you got a +1% chance to fully reset. Super simple game, but fun to play for a little bit. Got a decent score, a few achievements, and never played again. Of course not predatory like this lol

[@devinplaysstuff2618]

I downloaded Banana as a joke and because it was free, I didn’t realize it went in-depth like this😭

[@nbrown5907]

Eye candy for leaving a game running sounds like a mining operation. I hate stupid shit like this.

[@terig5584]

This “game” is even more popular than when this video was published. 450,000 players when I just checked. What a ridiculous world.

[@jesseystrangelove]

you have no idea how happy i am when you post. truly my comfort youtuber.

[@jauwn]

Hell yeah

[@kajacx]

Steam: bans NFT games Also Steam: We have NFTs at home

[@greenlemon9155]

I love it when to display a picture and a counter you need a full 60Mo program size without anyone being annoyed about it

[@godhimself9396]

I guess you could say this is literally... Monkey Business

[@MuhammVij]

Reminds me of “sol’s rng” and the countless other games that spin or roll for different completely useless only cosmetic “auras”

[@lilfrost5037]

I scrolled for so long looking for something like this, definitely could be heavily inspired by sol

[@clyded_thysilly]

sols rng auras look much better than the bananas at least lol

[@mikitagd8420]

At least sol rng is still better than this, cuz you cant even uae the banana in game

[@bobstevenson3130]

I'm imagining what it would be like if this game was released in the 90s and picturing someone inserting dozens of floppy disks into their PC just to load an image of a banana

[@sinfulpuritan3430]

This is how I imagine the economy in the Donkey Kong universe works. Rare banana trading.

[@ferociousfeind8538]

"OOOOOOOHHH" "BANANA"