Chances are high you’re nicely conscious of that weird Banana recreation that’s exploded in reputation lately. Regardless that all you do is click on a static picture of a banana to make a quantity go up, it’s presently the second-most performed recreation on Steam, shedding solely to Counter-Strike 2. This success seems to have attracted scrutiny, nonetheless, as the sport’s developer has needed to challenge a press release about how Banana isn’t a rip-off of some type, as reported by Eurogamer.

For anybody not within the know, you possibly can earn bananas (both by clicking sufficient occasions or ready lengthy sufficient), which may then be bought on the Steam market. Whereas most solely go for just a few cents, there are reviews of individuals spending a whole bunch, if not hundreds of {dollars} on these bananas, regardless that they don’t do something in-game. As such, members of the Banana Discord and Steam customers have discovered the entire thing suspicious.

Issues appeared to escalate when one in every of Banana‘s workforce members, solely referred to as Theselions, was accused of as soon as being a part of a Steam market bitcoin rip-off. Banana‘s co-founder, aestheticspartan, has since defined on Discord that that is true, however insisted nobody else on the workforce was even conscious of Theselions’ involvement. What’s extra, when confronted on the matter, Theselions is alleged to be “displaying regret and is sorry about what occurred prior to now.” Nonetheless, aestheticspartan added that Theselions has now “parted methods” with the workforce, and his stock has been cleared of “any helpful bananas that would concern and/or fear the group.”

It’s unlikely the elimination of a single workforce member will put to mattress any suspicions in regards to the Banana recreation itself, however the builders have mentioned their engaged on updates that may “flip this recreation into one thing greater and higher than only a clicker recreation.” This consists of letting gamers “do rather more together with your bananas,” suggesting there’ll finally be some in-game perform for the bananas folks have been incomes.

In a current interview with Polygon, developer Hery assured every part the workforce is doing is completely authorized, but it surely stays unclear how a lot of its 786,000+ gamers (on the time of writing) are precise people and never bots set as much as farm for bananas. Hery admitted there’s a bot downside, saying solely a 3rd of Banana‘s concurrent participant depend from final week have been actual folks, however they consider extra human gamers have since joined in. Plus, it’s contacted Valve to determine the way it can clamp down on the bots.

I’ve to confess, I’m a bit curious to see how for much longer Banana can keep its reputation, and what kind of additions it may make with these promised updates. The entire thing does sound worryingly much like the NFT fad, although, and if the Banana bubble bursts, folks could possibly be left with a bunch of ineffective gadgets that they’ll’t even unload.