- [Narrator] It was the game that
coined a dozen catch-phrases.
- [Commentator In Game] Boomshakalaka!
- [Narrator] And made over a billion dollars in quarters.
- [Commentator In Game] Jams it in!
- [Narrator] But NBA Jam almost never saw the light of day.
- [Commentator In Game] Oh my, he's on fire!
- [Commentator In Game] Welcome to NBA Jam.
- [Narrator] This is NBA Jam game-designer, Mark Turmell.
- So we put together a demo, a video tape, VHS.
We sent it to the NBA and said,
'Hey we're making this cool game'
and they immediately shut it down and said
'No, we don't want the NBA logo in the arcades.’
So, once we got rejected we made a video tape
of nice family entertainment centers
and we sent that back to them and said,
'Look, you know, your logo can be here,’
so they relented and, uh, provided the license.
When we put it in the arcade for the very first time
there were no stats that differentiated the players.
Everybody assumed that Shaq was a bad three-point shooter
or Stockton could steal the ball,
so we realized pretty quickly
that we had to, you know, up our game
to match the real world.
- [Commentator In Game] No good.
- Well, if it's just looking at pure attributes,
I happen to be the best player in the game.
- [Commentator In Game] Showtime!
- When you actually put in my secret character
it just shows question marks for the stats,
but they're all tens or nines.
- [Commentator In Game] Take that.
- [Commentator In Game] From the outside, count it.
- I'm pretty good at NBA Jam.
- [Narrator] To test the claim,
we had Mark hack into the machine
- [Mark] There we go.
- [Narrator] And turn on cheat codes.
- [Mark] Alright, now we're talking.
Usually, when somebody finds out that I made NBA Jam
they say 'I spent so much money on that NBA Jam'
or you know, 'I flunked a class in college
because of NBA Jam.'
- [Commentator In Game] Kaboom.
- But I look at the game now, I wish it were smoother,
but it was the technology at the time.
- [Commentator In Game] Razzle dazzle.
- The game still holds up today.
- [Commentator In Game] It is (buzzer) good!