NBA Jam: The Night a Chicago Arcade Knew It Had a Hit

NBA Jam's on-court bodies were Chicago amateurs, not NBA stars; one of them was a club bouncer. Midway built it after a flop, watched it become the highest-earning arcade game in the history of the industry, then lost the name to Acclaim. Chapters 0:00 The chip 1:40 The flop 3:20 Blue on blue 6:27 Stuffed coin boxes 7:59 He's on fire 9:45 The name 11:24 The same code 12:16 The photocopy Sources Reyan Ali, NBA Jam (Boss Fight Books, October 22, 2019), excerpt published as "'He's on fire!': How a club bouncer starred in the making of billion-dollar arcade hit NBA Jam", VG247, November 14, 2019. https://www.vg247.com/making-of-nba-jam (primary: standard history) Reyan Ali, NBA Jam (Boss Fight Books), excerpt published as "The Night They Turned On The First NBA Jam Machine", Kotaku, August 17, 2017. https://kotaku.com/the-night-they-tur... (primary: standard history) Alex Abnos and Dan Greene, "NBA Jam: The Oral History", Sports Illustrated (SI Longform), July 2017, read at the Wayback copy. https://web.archive.org/web/201810052... (primary: interview) Mark Turmell, Sal DiVita and Tim Kitzrow, "Classic Game Postmortem: NBA Jam", Game Developers Conference, March 2018, video (read through the automatic captions). Classic Game Postmortem: NBA Jam (primary: recording) Matt Leone, "The Rise, Fall, and Return of NBA Jam", 1UP.com, June 2010, pages 2 and 3, read at the Wayback copies. https://web.archive.org/web/201304120... and https://web.archive.org/web/201304120... (primary: interview) Jon Robinson, "The Gamer Blog: You don't know Jam" (interview with Mark Turmell), ESPN The Magazine, October 2008, read at the Wayback copy. https://web.archive.org/web/200902121... (primary: interview) Mark Turmell, "favorite memories" contribution, Digital Press no. 52, May–June 2003, p. 17. https://www.digitpress.com/library/ne... (primary: interview) Alex Wong, "Man on Fire: The Voice of NBA Jam's Most Iconic Lines", VICE Sports, September 1, 2015. https://www.vice.com/en/article/man-o... (primary: interview) #NBAJam #RetroGaming #ArcadeHistory The Beige Years @thebeigeyears