NBA Jam is an arcade basketball game developed by Midway in 1993. It gained fame for its rules-light take on basketball, its iconic announcer, and mysterious hidden characters. With NBA Jam Tees displaying your team's top players and video game-style stats underneath, these T-shirts offer some retro flair to accompany your team pride. Wear NBA Jam T-Shirts from store.nba.com to support your team's superstars during the playoffs. The official online store of the NBA will keep you and your family decked out in these.
HE'S ON FIRE! NBA JAM: On Fire Edition from EA SPORTS™ is heating up and now available for download! NBA JAM: OFE is everything you love about NBA JAM, dialed up to 11! Dozens of new gameplay additions, more original Kitzrow commentary, Online Arena, online or couch co-op everywhere, and more special teams, players, Legends, mascots, and content to discover than any JAM game ever!
The Trial Mode is only a sampling - download the full version today! ©2011 EA Inc. All rights reserved. Trademarks are property of their respective owners. REGISTRATION AND SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED TO ACCESS ONLINE FEATURES. EA ONLINE TERMS & CONDITIONS AND FEATURE UPDATES AT www.ea.com. MUST BE 13+ TO REGISTER WITH EA ONLINE.
EA MAY RETIRE ONLINE FEATURES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON www.ea.com OR 30 DAYS AFTER THE LAST DAY OF THE 2011 - 2012 NBA SEASON. We all know that Time is Money. That's why we'll let you save some time by giving you every Legend, Mascot, Privilege, 12 Special Teams, and oh yeah, 10,000 JAM BUCKS to spend. Make sure you check out JAM CENTRAL to see all the goodies you've unlocked, and spend some of those Jam Bucks. ©2011 EA Inc.
All rights reserved. Trademarks are property of their respective owners. REGISTRATION AND SUBSCRIPTION REQUIRED TO ACCESS ONLINE FEATURES. EA ONLINE TERMS & CONDITIONS AND FEATURE UPDATES AT www.ea.com. MUST BE 13+ TO REGISTER WITH EA ONLINE. EA MAY RETIRE ONLINE FEATURES AFTER 30 DAYS NOTICE POSTED ON www.ea.com OR 30 DAYS AFTER THE LAST DAY OF THE 2011 - 2012 NBA SEASON.
NBA FANS of a certain age speak of the 1990s in reverent tones, nostalgic for a bygone era in which physical play ruled and larger-than-life stars made jaws drop. And nowhere was that style more apparent than on the virtual courts of NBA Jam, an over-the-top video game in which the league’s actual stars—minus one contractually excluded Chicagoan—bullied and somersault-slammed their way through a cartoonish brand of two-on-two ball. Dunkers launched as if powered by jet packs. Hot shooters saw the ball literally catch fire. In the absence of fouls, defenders full-arm shoved. It was absurd.
And it was an absolute smash hit.When Midway released Jam, in April 1993, the game shattered arcade revenue records like digitized backboards, birthing new entries in basketball’s exclamatory lexicon ( Boomshakalaka!) and eventually spawning sequels and spinoffs. Nearly a quarter century later, SI assembled the game’s makers and stars—in some cases one in the same—to recount how the phenomenon came to be, why the NBA was so slow to sign on and how everyone from Shaq to Macaulay Culkin couldn’t get enough. MARK TURMELLMidway developerWe saw at a trade show that Atari was working on a fighting game called Primal Rage, which used photographs to create stop-motion little dinosaurs that fought. We decided to make a basketball game using that technology because I’m a big basketball fan.
Williams, our parent company, had bought Bally, and Bally had made a game called Arch Rivals that used hand-drawn animations to depict two-on-two basketball.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerYou could punch people in Arch Rivals—I think that’s where we got the idea of knocking a player over in NBA Jam.SHAWN LIPTAKMidway developerWe looked at Arch Rivals, which was very tongue in cheek, kind of funny, and were like: We can do something much more modern, with better graphics. YouTubeNEIL NICASTROMidway PresidentFor an arcade game, you’ve got to cram enough fun and adrenaline into a minute and a half so that someone will put in another quarter. You’ve got to make it sensational.MARK TURMELLMidway developerI started cruising around Chicago, going to playgrounds and to DePaul’s basketball arena to find a couple of players to model for us.STEPHEN HOWARDNBA Jam model; NBA forwardTurmell came into the gym at Alumni Hall and said, “Hey, do any of you guys wanna help make a video game?” I was like, “Sure.”MARK TURMELLMidway developerWe went into a TV production studio, painted a wall and set up a camera 20 feet away. We had these players run back and forth and mimic basketball moves.STEPHEN HOWARDNBA Jam model; NBA forwardWhen I was negotiating with Mark I said, “I have the potential of playing in the NBA, so I need to get more money.” He ended up paying me double what he paid the other guys.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerAt that point they were just doing very simple, realistic dunks. I put that footage on a floppy disk and gave it to Mark to digitize.MARK TURMELLMidway developerI would show these dunks—at pretty normal heights—to Eugene Jarvis, who made Defender and Stargate and Robotron, and he was like, “Maybe make that a little faster, a little higher.”JOHN CARLTONMidway developerThe next day Mark gave me a call: “Come on over; I just got one of the dunks in the game.” He had exaggerated it to the point where the player was taking off at the top of the key, jumping 20 feet in the air—a classic NBA Jam-style dunk. I was just dumbfounded, like, “Come on, we need to make this realistic!”. SAL DIVITAMidway developerMore and more, people reacted positively to the exaggerated dunks, like, “You have to do this!”JONATHAN HEYMidway developerThen we started taking that a little further—triple somersaults 30 feet in the air, windmills, insane alley-oops.STEPHEN HOWARDNBA Jam model; NBA forwardYou know how when you’re on fire and you tumble over and spin when you dunk?
To film that they set me on a picnic bench; there was a mat on the floor and I would just tumble over, like stunt work. We did that for about five days. It was pretty monotonous work.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerI was down on the monster dunks, I have to admit.
I loved the NBA for what it was; I didn’t want to turn this into a clown show. But within 24 hours I was converted. “O.K., let’s go crazy here!”MARK TURMELLMidway developerI recognized right away: Everyone loved jumping to the height of the top of the backboard. JOHN CARLTONMidway developerI said, “But we can’t have John Stockton taking off from the top of the key and jamming it over Dikembe Mutombo.
Nobody’s going to want to play that. How about each player gets certain specialties—if it’s Stockton, he never gets the ball stolen from him, and so on. I really wanted to protect the individual players’ identities.”MARK TURMELLMidway developerOne day Jamie Rivett, a Midway developer, and I were walking to Burger King for lunch. I said, “We need some kind of mode you get into—something to bring more excitement to this.” He said something about how we could go into a “fire mode.” So we strategized over lunch and came up with: If you make three shots in a row, you get on fire for a period of time or a handful of shots. We went back to the office and implemented the feature that afternoon.
It was a game changer.JONATHAN HEYMidway developerWhen you’re on fire you can get by with goaltending, your shooting percentage goes to like 95%, you can pretty much wipe out the other team.MARK TURMELLMidway developerThere were some naysayers. Sal hated the fire mode. Jamie Rivett and I said, “We need some flames to put on the basketball,” and Sal actually said, “No, I’m not gonna give you flames.”. JONATHAN HEYMidway developerIt was too ridiculous, too gaudy. I wanted to maintain the purity of the sport.
We toned it down to where it was acceptable.SHAWN LIPTAKMidway developerUltimately the fun factor won out. It wasn’t supposed to be realistic.
It was an escape from reality.JOSH TSUIMidway developerA lot of sports games back then were just trying to mimic the sport. This felt like the sport, but it also felt like a crazy arcade game.MARK TURMELLMidway developerIt was so clear that we had lightning in a bottle. JONATHAN HEYMidway developerIt was proposed: “Let’s get Marv Albert in the game.” But his fee would have been way too much.TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerI was performing with Second City improv group at the time.
It was around the heyday of all the big names: Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Tina Fey, Tim Meadows.MARK TURMELLMidway developerTim had done some voice-overs for a couple of pinball games and he was a friend of the sound department.TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerIt was a $50-an-hour nonunion gig, and when you’re young and waiting tables, that’s great money. I thought: I’ll make two hundred bucks and be on my way.
Tim KitzrowJONATHAN HEYMidway developerI watched real games and listened to people announce, and I put together 95% of the Jam script. I spent at least a month doing that.TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerIt’s funny how small the script was. There were literally two pieces of paper with all the lines.
I could rattle off all the classics for you in less than 30 seconds.JONATHAN HEYMidway developerYou couldn’t really go into a long description of the play; the second you score, the other team’s going the other way.MARK TURMELLMidway developerTim asked, “Could I ad-lib a couple things? We said, “Yeah, do whatever.” It was magic.TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerI realized I was going to be like a carnival barker, getting people up to the cabinet.
If you were in an arcade, you should hear that voice and be like, Wow, what’s going on over there?JONATHAN HEYMidway developerBoomshakalaka—Kitzrow’s line on particularly gnarly dunks—I put that in the script at the suggestion of John Carlton. YouTubeJONATHAN HEYMidway developerMark Turmell wanted a phrase for blocking the ball: “Get that s- out of here!” Of course, that wasn’t gonna fly with the NBA.
I recorded it, though, and all that stuff went into a subfolder of rejected lines—“he’s got him by the balls” and stuff like that.TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerThere was only one line that made the game that I thought was kinda stupid: razzle dazzle. I wasn’t buying anyone saying that. It’s a little hokey, a little cheesy. But it’s just a great line, and now I love it. MICHELE BROWNNBA licensing directorArcade games were primarily in bars at the time, and that’s not the image we wanted. Midway had a long haul to convince us this would not discredit our brand.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorThe stigma was that coin-operated amusement games were only available in seedy little hangouts, and that couldn’t have been further from the truth. It was my task to educate them.MARK TURMELLMidway developerThe NBA, of course, came back pretty quickly and said no.
ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorThere was a topless place in Times Square that had video games in it. There was another place on Eighth Avenue where you could see a pinball machine in the front window of a peep show as you went to Port Authority bus station. I’m not casting any value judgment on anybody at the NBA, but I sensed that maybe some of their employees might have walked by and seen that.MARK TURMELLMidway developerWe said, “Hey, that’s not the case.” And to prove it we went out and shot footage of some entertainment centers around Chicago—bowling alleys and family locations.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorI’m not willing to give up. I fight for what I believe in. I was a pest.MICHELE BROWNNBA licensing directorRoger was convincing.
We had a lot of conversations about how Midway wanted to change the perceptions of branded games by having credible properties.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorI won’t say it was at the 11th hour—maybe at 9:30 or 10—but in the end we were able to secure the license. MICHELE BROWNNBA licensing directorIt boiled down to money. Based on their forecasts and given their proven distributions, the numbers were pretty significant. And we wrote into the contract that if the games were placed in disreputable locations, we would pull the license for cause.MARK TURMELLMidway developerThe royalty, I believe, was $200 per cabinet, with a minimum guarantee—I imagine that was a couple hundred thousand dollars.
Not big numbers. We were elated, but that game created so much work—80 hours a week—that we didn’t spend much time celebrating.
We didn’t have much of a social life.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerI’d work all night and not go home. That was common.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorWe’d go through rosters, deciding who was on each team. There was a good give and take.MARK TURMELLMidway developerWe decided who seemed to be the two stars for each team. If we didn’t know, we’d dig in and try to figure out, O.K., who’s performing well? I remember looking at newspapers. Hey, did you see what Laettner did last night?
We laughed about putting Mavericks guard Mike Iuzzolino in because we didn’t really know him. He might’ve had a good night that week. Scott Cunningham/Getty ImagesMIKE IUZZOLINODallas Mavericks guardI’m probably the most obscure player in that game. The guy that gets drafted last. And that’s O.K. At least I’m on there.MARK PRICECleveland Cavaliers guardIt felt like you’d arrived a bit, being picked to be in the game.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerIt would have been awesome to have had Michael Jordan doing dunks that no one else could do. But he didn’t need us.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorJordan wasn’t allowed to be part of anything NBA-licensed.
MJ had opted out of the Players Association’s licensing agreement.SAL DIVITAMidway developerDoing all the players’ heads was the hard part. We didn’t have the photography the NBA has these days.
We had to scour magazines for photographs and record televised games, marking the times and going back to rip the right frame. We even requested slides and videos from the NBA.NEIL NICASTROMidway PresidentWhen you saw your favorite player on the court doing cool stuff, it was like, Oh s-, this is different, this is cool—just like when you saw people kicking the crap out of each other in Mortal Kombat. MARK TURMELLMidway developerI’m a big gambler, and every video game we tested would get competitive. We’d gamble for vending machine products. With Jam it escalated into cash.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerI lost at least a couple hundred bucks playing that game.MARK TURMELLMidway developerI would work on the game until four or five o’clock p.m. And then say, “O.K., I got a bunch of changes in, come and give this a shot.” We might play for a couple hours, have dinner, and then I would work some more, till 10 or 11, then play a bit more. Six months in we had something worthy of testing.
We brought it to Dennis’ Place in Chicago, one of our favorite arcades. The way the business works, they said, you’d know on the first day if you had a hit game.NEIL NICASTROMidway PresidentWe thought the numbers that came back were screwy. We hadn’t yet tested anything that had made that much money.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerAnything over $1,000 a week was considered a good game. Mortal Kombat was making about $1,200 to $1,400. The second week NBA Jam was out there, it made something like $2,200 in a week.NEIL NICASTROMidway PresidentWe heard reports that operators said the game was broken. That got us all upset. Why don’t we know what’s happening?
Well, get out there and check it out, goddammit! It turns out the cash boxes were stuffed.
The coin mechanisms couldn’t take any more quarters.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerSal and I went to see what the hell was going on out there. We walk into the arcade and there are like 20 guys standing around while four players play. They were watching it like they’re watching an actual basketball game, cheering every basket.
Rasco/SI, shot at Barcade in BrooklynMARK TURMELLMidway developerThey’d do a dunk they’d never seen before and start screaming and running around.SHAWN LIPTAKMidway developerAll the stuff that we thought was fun and hoped the public would think was fun, we saw it.MARK TURMELLMidway developerTesting, though, showed that if you were blowing out your opponent—even if you were winning—you weren’t paying money to continue. Likewise, if you were getting blown out, why would you pay more? So I put in a rubber-banding system, which we called CPU Assistance. JONATHAN HEYMidway developerMark Turmell is from Detroit.
He set it so that if you were playing as the Bulls who were dominating the NBA at the time against his Pistons, your shooting percentage would be completely awry, especially near the end of a close game.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerHe says he coded the Bulls to always throw a brick at the last second. I always played as the Bulls and he always played as the Pistons, and he won most of the time—so maybe he actually did that.MARK TURMELLMidway developerNobody really detected it at the time. SHAWN LIPTAKMidway developerIf a game sold around 2,000 units back then, that was the break-even point. The Terminator game came out around that time and sold like 10,000 units. We were like, It would be great if we could do that.
Then we shipped over, like, 20,000 units.EDDIE ADLUMRePlay magazine publisherNBA Jam entered our chart at No. It’s very strange for that to happen.JONATHAN HEYMidway developerThe operators were like, “Make the coin boxes bigger because we’ve gotta empty this thing every hour!”. Rasco/SI, shot at Barcade in BrooklynEDDIE ADLUMRePlay magazine publisherThe video game business was on its way down, but this was one of the few machines that was really kicking butt.MARK TURMELLMidway developerOne arcade in Chicago set a Guinness world record: $2,468 in one week. I still have that earnings report. You’d see NBA Jam at the top, making four times what the No.
2 game was making.BENJAMIN HOCHMANSt. Louis Post-Dispatch columnistThere was a Tropicana Lanes where I grew up, in Clayton, Missouri.
It was a big deal when they got NBA Jam.J.E. SKEETSNBATV hostThe first time I played was at the 7-Eleven in my small town in Canada. I vividly remember trying to convince my mom to give me quarters. BRANDON KRISZTALKOA NewsRadio producerAt the Jewish community center in Dallas we’d be playing it for hours on end. It makes me think about Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours rule.TREY KERBYNBATV hostIf you could dream up the way a kid wants to play basketball, that’s exactly what NBA Jam was. It got rid of all the boring stuff: free throws, backcourt violations.
You were just left with the goods.TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerThere was a bigger crowd every time I went to the arcade in Chicago, people lined up seven or eight deep with their quarters piled on top of the cabinet, calling for next. Rasco/SI, shot at Barcade in BrooklynJOHN CARLTONMidway developerA year later I’m on vacation with my wife in Bologna, Italy. We’re walking down the street and there’s an arcade. I figure, I’ll see what kind of games they have over here.
I walk in and there’s NBA Jam, right in front, people all around it. It was so bizarre.JOSH TSUIMidway developerPeople felt very competitive, not just in the arcade but in restaurants and bars and bowling alleys. The key thing: It was a four-player game, so you had four people at a bar, whoopin’ it up, screaming when big things happen, and that attracts other people. It had a big spectacle around it.STEVEN L.
KENTVideo game historianBefore NBA Jam, basketball games looked like Double Dribble, with animated cut scenes if you slammed the ball, kind of Leroy Neimanesque. YouTubeBENJAMIN HOCHMANSt.
Louis Post-Dispatch columnistThe instant you saw NBA Jam you realized this was the next level. It reminds me of Babe Ruth in baseball: Before him you had Home Run Baker and all these guys hitting eight, nine. 14 home runs. Then comes Babe Ruth hitting 40, 50, 60. That was the disparity.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorEverything before Jam tended to be more simulation-based.
We were as far away from that as anybody. Tim Kitzrow’s play-by-play? My god, this is a party.J.E. SKEETSNBATV hostThere were all these cheats in the game, hidden characters.
That blew my mind. Some kid from out of town would show up and he’d know about this cheat code, and you were like, What?!MARK TURMELLMidway developerWe had a code where if a designer put in his initials and a number, then you could play as him. You’d go into an arcade and challenge somebody, then pull up your head and they’d do a double take and freak out— How’d you do that? Of course we had better stats than everybody else. I had the best stats. TIM KITZROWNBA Jam announcerSame thing at the gym.
I’d play basketball at the YMCA and I would ask some kid his name. Then I’d say, “Jeffrey, from downtown!” “You sound like that guy from the video game.” “I am, man!
Boomshakalaka!” All the kids would gather around; it was this pied piper situation. “Say my name! Say my name!”SAL DIVITAMidway developerWe talked about putting cameras on the game so a customer could get his actual face onto a character, but the effort was more than we wanted to deal with. Plus, for any game with a camera there’s the TTP factor. Time to Penis. How long is it gonna take before somebody puts their penis on video?
Any time there’s a camera on anything, that always happens. KENDALL GILLCharlotte Hornets guard-forwardI was interested in seeing myself, whether I had the high-top fade. They pretty much had it down.STEPHEN HOWARDNBA Jam model; NBA forwardMy first year in training camp with the Jazz, guard Tim Legler and I would literally spend all of our per diem in the arcade on NBA Jam and Mortal Kombat. No kid could match up with an NBA player given all the per diem we got.
We would just stack up quarters. Kids would see these stacks and go, “I guess I’m not gonna play.”GLEN RICEMiami Heat fowardI’d go to the mall arcade and there’d be lines out the door. But they’d let me cut. They’d be like: “Oh my god, it’s Glen. Let’s play with the Heat. You be Rony Seikaly and I’ll be you.” And I’d be like, “Oh no.
GLEN RICEMiami Heat fowardI purchased a cabinet. We didn’t get any sleep in my house, we played that game all the time. We would have to get the buttons replaced.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerOne day, I’m sitting at my cubicle at Midway, working on God knows what, and I hear this little voice behind me say, “Carlton! Hey, it’s Carlton!” I turn around and there’s Macaulay Culkin looking at me.JOSH TSUIMidway developerI think he was filming Richie Rich. He wanted to stop by and meet the people who made Mortal Kombat. The next thing you know, the kid and his brother are running around the studio.JOHN CARLTONMidway developerHe goes, “I always play as your secret character.” And then he walks away.
MARK TURMELLMidway developerGary Payton got a hold of me and wanted to be in the game. Payton was still on the verge of breaking out; the Sonics were represented in Jam by Shawn Kemp and Benoit Benjamin. I told him what we would need, not thinking anything would come of it. It’s a lot of effort, like nine images for the head.
Then I received photographs in the mail, Payton standing in front of a wall at all these angles. Then he said, “Oh, I’m buddies with Ken Griffey Jr. And he wants to be in the game. And Michael Jordan wants to be in the game.”SAL DIVITAMidway developerGriffey did send us shots of him wearing a backwards baseball hat.MARK TURMELLMidway developerI did a special version of the game with the three of them in it. I sent that to Payton.
I was happy to do it, but it was pretty early in his career. It wasn’t even clear it was the right move.BRANDON KRISZTALKOA NewsRadio producerIt’s obviously a ridiculous video game. I played the other day and John Stockton had a bunch of blocks, a bunch of dunks. You have to suspend reality.MIKE IUZZOLINODallas Mavericks guardI was a lot better in the game than in person.
I could dunk in the game.JONATHAN HEYMidway developerIn the arcade people just started talking back to the screen, “Boomshakalaka!” or “I’m on fire!”BENJAMIN HOCHMANSt. Louis Post-Dispatch columnistGetting on fire was one of the coolest things you could do in 1993. It became part of the lexicon. We’d be at eighth-grade basketball practice, making layups, going, “Boomshakalaka!”J.E. SKEETSNBATV hostThat was ingrained in any pickup game. If you hit two shots in a row, you were on fire. You didn’t even have to wait for the third.
My friends and I recorded each other dunking on a six-foot rim, yelling “Boomshakalaka!” Thank God YouTube didn’t exist.GLEN RICEMiami Heat fowardMy teammates would say it quite often about me: “He’s on fire!” And then Harold Miner would dunk: “Boomshakalaka!”. KENTVideo game historianThe real eruption for NBA Jam was as a console game.SAL DIVITAMidway developerIn arcades you can only hit so many people.NEIL NICASTROMidway PresidentWe had a deal with Acclaim to port our coin-op games out for home use. They made a lot of money, we made a lot of money. But we made less than if we’d gone straight to the home market ourselves.TREY KERBYNBATV hostI had a Super Nintendo at my dad’s house and a Sega Genesis at my mom’s house. And I had NBA Jam for both of them.
It was awesome.BENJAMIN HOCHMANSt. Louis Post-Dispatch columnistThe idea that NBA Jam could be in my house, at my fingertips whenever I want? What a sensation. I remember being in my basement for hours playing that game. The books I could’ve read.The original instruction manual for NBA Jam on SNES(Use two fingers to scroll past the guide)SHAWN LIPTAKMidway developerThen we had the whole debacle of losing the license to the NBA Jam name in 1996. Acclaim ended up getting it.SAL DIVITAMidway developerThey made their own version NBA Jam Extreme, for consoles and arcades and it was an abomination. The game died on the vine at the arcade.
SAL DIVITAMidway developerHangtime was a better game on a billion levels. It was the same code, and the art was so much better, we had cooler effects. But it didn’t matter how good it was—if it wasn’t called NBA Jam, it wasn’t the same thing.JOSH TSUIMidway developerArcade operators were banking on these games always making that much money, and it just wasn’t sustainable.
They started by charging a quarter on NBA Jam, then 50 cents, then some would jack the price up to a dollar per play. It got really expensive to go the arcade and play these short experiences. Meanwhile, home console games like Metal Gear Solid or Tomb Raider were coming out and they had 60 to 70 hours of game play for 40 to 50 dollars. The arcade, where you were dropping 50 cents every minute—it just didn’t make sense anymore.JONATHAN HEYMidway developerBy 2001, Midway had shut down its arcade development and was just doing home games.
With the financial crisis, around ’08, creditors called up their loans. Viacom owner Sumner Redstone had invested hundres of millions in Midway, but he ended up selling his stake for $100,000 because he could write off the loss. JONATHAN HEYMidway developerIt was a perfect ’90s thing.
It epitomized this new era of bravado and energy and personality.STEPHEN HOWARDNBA Jam model; NBA forwardTwo years ago I was an analyst for the Pelicans. I was driving into the parking lot during a playoff game. I roll down the window and the attendant goes, “He’s on fire!” I look at him and go, “Why’d you say that?” He says, “ NBA Jam, baby!” I just started cracking up.BRANDON KRISZTALKOA NewsRadio producerI was at a house party four years ago, playing beer pong against a college kid and he goes, “I’m on fire, you gotta give me the ball back.” I go, “What do you mean?” He goes, “I made three in a row.” I said, “Oh, like NBA Jam—you’re on fire.” He had no idea what I was talking about.PAUL KERMIZIANOwner of Barcade retro arcade chainWe have an NBA Jam: Tournament Edition at all seven locations. It’s one of the most popular games we have. It’s essential.
We wouldn’t open a location without it.Where to play NBA Jam todayTREY KERBYNBATV hostThey cracked the code. It was just a simple, superfun version of basketball.SHAWN LIPTAKMidway developerOn a sad note, it’s kind of hard to top that. It sets a high bar that all your future projects are measured against.
I haven’t had a product that successful since.STEVEN L. KENTVideo game historianThe game has a huge legacy.
Developers—on football games, baseball, golf, boxing—started putting in codes, balls caught on fire, players became unstoppable. All that was popularized by NBA Jam.JONATHAN HEYMidway developerI teach in the game development department at DePaul. I always ask my students, “Who’s played NBA Jam?” Many of them have, some form of it.J.E. SKEETSNBATV hostI played the arcade, played the console—and now, at 36, I’m still playing it at a friend’s house on a Friday night.ROGER SHARPEMidway licensing directorIt was a masterpiece, everything coming together at the right time. The game endures.