How NBA JAM Became A Billion-Dollar Slam Dunk | War Stories | Ars Technica

the game was introduced at the NBA all-star game in Salt Lake City in 93 so he had a lot of NBA players there of course players started asking how they could get one one of those players was shaft it was really interesting Shaq bought two games right off the bat he had one at home but one they actually traveled with on the team plane it's kind of a funny thing to imagine this game getting wheeled out of the team jet into you know each hotel room night after night after night hi this is Mark Tramel the designer and lead programmer on NBA Jam and this is how we overcame the chaos and challenges to release NBA Jam [Music] well I started making video games when I was 15 or 16 years old first playing on a mainframe computer at a local college Zork and adventure you know text-based games and then I bought an ample - computer which allowed me to learn how to program an assembly language which is really needed to get the you know performance it took me a while to introduce my first game sneakers came out in they went on to do Atari 2600 VCS cartridges and eventually when the video game business kind of hit the wall I decided to shift my attention to the coin op business which still have real opportunities and so I joined Williams Electronics in 1989 I started at Williams with the intent to make a dual joystick game so I created a game called smash TV that had dual joysticks Robotron is my favorite game of all time from Eugene Jarvis good friend of mine now he was kind of my mentor at Midway and then after that I moved on I did a total carnage which was an elephant other build joystick but we were all kind of geeking out on the digitized graphics concept the new technology if you will so we kind of broke off to do Mortal Kombat frog was kind of a claymation digitized looking game strikeforce was another defender style game a lot of games kind of purple ating up from this group of you know 25 30 people I started NBA GM the NBA had never licensed a game to the arcade space before trying to get them to approve their logo going into an arcade we sent a video of our kind of work-in-progress movement you know characters moving left and right on a court no crowd no stains no NBA players two hoops and a groundling and we sent back and you know we explained kind of our just I have a one-page overview to 1to dumbs passes for player cabinet and they immediately came back and said no inside Times Square there were a lot of our caves some of our best test locations for all of our games were there but it was a kind of a rough crowd kind of a seedy location 24 hours a day they weren't sure they wanted their logo in that type of a location so we actually created another videotape showing typical family entertainment centers bowling alleys you know the big arcades out in the in the suburbs lo and behold they responded with yes they would be fine putting their logo into those types of locations so we were off to the races with a whole nother challenge of how to get NBA players now into this game of course the most popular team was the Chicago Bulls it was during the Michael Jordan era Jordan and Pippen were the two members in NBA GM and they were just dominating we had all these stats that we would track they were clearly the winner we weren't sure if the game was successful just because we were in Chicago or if this would be you know a nationwide thing but right before we launched the game the NBA reached out to us and said that Michael Jordan had just removed himself from all licensing of the NBA thinking that he could go off on his own and make more money than you know splitting his percentage equally with all players in the NBA and so we had to remove Jordan from the game and of course it didn't matter the game was still blockbuster success but there are still some games out there with Michael Jordan in the game all of our test location games and also some custom wrongs that are out there floating around with Jordan still in the game so we launched the game without Jordan but it was only a few weeks later before I got a message from an operator and distributor of games a young rookie named Gary Payton was upset that he wasn't in the game he actually reached outs of how do I get in this we did a special version of the game with Gary Payton he was in subsequent releases but he initially was in his own private game he was friends with ken griffey jr. who was friends with Michael Jordan Ken Griffey wanted to be in the game so we had Ken Griffey in the game as a custom set of wrongs and so then Jordan said okay I want this too so we put Jordan back in the game and we gave him the custom set of e problems so that he could be in the game for himself so NBA Jam had numerous challenges some really significant challenges so here's how we we tackled solving the problems we wanted to have digitized characters to make it look more realistic we had to figure out how to record basketball players doing these moves you know it's kind of funny to think about digitized graphics as being cutting-edge back then in the late 80s 1990 the idea putting a digitized image onto the screen was really unheard of it was difficult because there's a there's a lot more a memory required to to represent an object you need more color depth you know more pixels previous to that all games were hand-drawn graphics starting with early pac-man style games you know onward it was always an artist generating really detailed images of a character running or walking or jumping so when you think about those early games most things were hand-drawn but Atari it came up with a game a fighting game called pit fighter and they used very coarse digitized images of some punches they followed that up with a game called primal rage I believe it was called where they kind of did claymation dinosaurs and so all of these companies were starting to try to get some digital elements to maybe ease their development process or just you know be more cutting-edge trying to get digitized characters into the game you know we were total noobs we knew that whether reporters would stand in front of a blue screen to you know to do their weather report and that was about the limit of our understanding digitized graphics we were able to take a photograph or a video and transfer it into digital images that we could then display as a sprite on the screen its 2d but the images come from a videotape session and then we chose the frames for running or dunking or passing even though it's digitized to begin with we still have the memory footprint problem where we had to choose and select our frames carefully I went into the kind of the inner city of Chicago and I found some basketball players that were out on the streets on the parks that looked like they had a lot of flashy moves look really good and we rented a a warehouse we painted the wall blue we realized we could do blue or green so we did this blue screen we brought the the athletes in we ordered these uniforms a gray set of uniforms that these characters of where these basketball players I found but the uniforms came in and they were blue and so we have no time to you know repaint and you know we're paying for studio time and the guys are there so we recorded their moves we created a little dolly system to follow along a players who is dribbling and you know doing crossovers we had a portable hoop and so we basically tackled this shoot for two or three days getting as many moves as we could we documented everything and then we have of course the challenge of what do we do with all that footage and so we had all these tapes that then have to get converted into digitized graphics we eventually bought a big treadmill I think they used 4x sizing horses and we have the players running on this treadmill and even trying to dribble and kind of spin around just so that we could record from one perspective to keep everything consistent and we eventually had to hand trim out from the backgrounds every single player in every single move every single frame that we wanted to use from these videotape sessions because the the blue screen obviously didn't magically disappear for us so we have to do the manual labor of creating those frames from the videotape so once we have these players in the game running back and forth then we got the NBA license and we had to figure out how to transfer the real players onto our players so we chopped off the heads from all of those frames that we had clipped out from those recording sessions and we went about the effort of taking every NBA player that we were gonna put in the game it's just 2 per team we've looked at all of the frames the different running and jumping and face up-down left-right and we came up with a sheet these are really the heads the only set of heads we need for the entire set of animations we embarked on trying to find those exact images based on looking at videotapes recording NBA games looking at magazine shots and trying to then lift those images from whatever the source was so we can put them on to our headless bodies and so every frame of animation that could be you know a pass on this frame used this pad on this spraying used this hat this frame used this app and so we had to painstakingly select which of the 13 heads to apply to every single frame for every single animation another challenge was players expected these players to all be distinct you were John Stockton you expected to be able to steal the bomb if you were Shaq you knew you couldn't make a 3-point shot so there was a really large built-in expectation from our players we had no stats for the players and we found in the arcades as he went on to task that players expected their player to act the way they did in real life and so it became a real challenge for us to convert these players into what the players expect what the video game players would expect we worked on trying to put stats into the game we had to go back we did this at like 2:00 in the morning one night we put in a little stats numbers came up with eight different stats that each player would encompass that would reflect how fast they could run their shooting percentages their dunk ability they're stealing deflections we implemented all of these little tables all the way through the code anywhere that could be inflected we added it in the end it was really a smart decision because players really recognized it and it brought this extra layer of strategy in gamesmanship to our players because they knew that if they have this combination it would be better than that combination they're the type that prefers to be fast not strong a good shooter or a good dunker so it brought in a lot of added strategy to the gameplay itself so one of the interesting things about the arcade business is that we would test the game on location we'd sit back we'd watch we wouldn't you know tell though the player who we were this kid walked up to the machine but there are four start buttons much like you see here on this control panel the player stepped up and he hit the player to start by and he positioned himself at position number three his controls were over here but you know he was playing on the wrong controls I was so embarrassed I I stepped up to him and I said hey I think you're actually on player number two and he's like oh okay and he stepped over to position number two and I was like ah you know what a mess and then after about 30 seconds he stepped back over to position number three Big Z thought he was being more successful over there you know which was a drone player running back and forth and scoring and dunking and so he was not interacting with the game at all and preferred that so that was a pretty big red flag for us players are moving around fast there's AI moving around fast everybody's got similar flesh colors trying to help the player identify who they were who they controlling who their teammate was was a real challenge for players and a challenge for the development team the solution for that was we went back to the office and we created what I called bozo boxes when you start the game now there's a vertical panel that shows up right over your station on the control panel and it says you are Pippen your shoes are red you only control Pippen that allowed us to educate the player because he wasn't sure if he would pass and take over control of another character or you know whoever had the ball it was him that's not the way NBA Jam works so we have to educate the player with these bozo boxes changing the shoe color changing the turbo meter color to make sure that players would recognize who they were even to the point of choosing the players on the team the roster you know a taller guy or a shorter guy or different flesh tones trying to make it easier for the player to recognize on the screen and this fast-action who they were another thing NBA GM is well known for is the big head mode you know it's funny you get a chance to see these NBA players up close but really the genesis of that was that we needed players to understand who they were even more than their shoes or their their color and so big head mode really was back to player communication the AI the way players moved was a real challenge because if you have them moving to successfully or making too many good moves it was a problem if they didn't move where you'd expect them to move it was a problem NBA Jam costs 50 cents per period $2 for a full game of course we wanted players to play it all the way out but if they were ahead by say 7 points at the end of the first quarter we would not get them to pay that extra 50 cents if they were behind by 7 points they would quit and maybe start over from the start choose a different team and so that led us to CPU assistants CPU assistants is what a lot of games have done over the years driving games of ketchup from behind it was really particularly important to NBA GM and it was too obvious at the end of the day to the players but it was really important for us to rubberband the scores back and forth to make sure that it was a competitive match we didn't want players to run ahead we didn't want players to fall way behind because we knew we'd lose money in that circumstance and so we created this idea of the on fire mode an on fire changed everything we allowed the player to start heating up after he made two shots the third shot he would catch on fire his Bob would have flames on it he would burn the hoop and he would shoot like 99% 3-point shots you could call him on the defensive end and it changed the strategy of the game dramatically because now when you started to heat up or your teammate recognized that you were eating up they were trying to feed you the ball because it had to be a street for that one you know consistent player when an opponent was heating up you stopped trying to make 3-point shots you wanted to go in there and score you know do it easy dunk if your opponent was already on fire you certainly didn't want to go down and take a three-point shot because he could goaltender shot and get away with a legal goaltender so you would change your strategy to go in there and you know knock somebody down and do a simple dump which extinguishes the fire so the on fire mode became this solution for the disparity of scores and to let people come from behind and it layered in the strategy that we didn't really even anticipate the key lessons I learned right off the bat from NBA Jam was that a competitive game was magic from that point forward I never made any solo experience games it was always head-to-head competitive trying to get you know somebody excited on their own it's hard to do when you have two players and they're talking trash to each other or one guys better than the other it brings the whole nother layer of excitement to the player the rubber-banding and the tight scores made things more exciting and that spans different genres racing games obviously do it they try to keep things tight but sports games do it even on a match three game if you have a tape score it's a more exciting circumstance for the player you know being from Michigan originally I'm a big Detroit Pistons fan making this a game in Chicago during the height of the Michael Jordan era there was a big rivalry you know the Pistons and the Bulls but the one way that I could get back at the Bulls once they got over the hump was to affect their skills against the Pistons in NBA GM and so I put in special code that if the Bulls were taking the last-second shot against the Pistons they were miss those shots and so if you ever playing the game make sure you pick the Pistons over the Bulls in the end NBA GM was a monster hit we sold about 27,000 arcade cabinets the game ended up earning about 1 billion dollars in quarters one quarter at a time in its first 12 months and that is a pretty staggering when you think about ET that come out and become the number one film of all time and they was like you know 300 million and so to have a billion dollars go into the coin box in one year set a record that we were pretty proud of I think all game developers encounter problems what my advice would be is to you know take it one bite at a time you know in my company now we we always have a saying how do you eat an elephant and the answer is one bite at a time sometimes it's easy to get overwhelmed with the number of challenges and problems you know popping up all over the place feedback coming from all these different angles but you just have to tackle one thing at a time make that right and then you know move outward and so I learned a lot there in 1992-1993 I'm making India Jim [Music]

Channel: Ars Technica

Views: 438,107

Keywords: ars technica war stories, war stories ars technica, nba jam war stories, nba jam ars technica, mark turmell, mark turmell nba jam, war stories nba jam, nba jam history, nba jam, nba jam arcade, nba jam game, original nba jam, nba jam 1993, making of nba jam, nba jam ea sports, new nba jam, nba jam ars, ars nba jam, nba jam interview, nba jam creator, nba jam jordan, nba jam te, nba jam acclaim, acclaim nba jam, nba jam midway, ea nba jam, ars, ars technica, technology

Id: NU12_OWH7bA

Length: 21min 45sec (1305 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Big_Simba]

This is all the evidence I need to conclude that anytime I’ve been screwed over in a video game, it was in fact fucking bullshit and the devs are out to get me

[u/TigerBasket]

I respect the pettiness

[u/delightfuldinosaur]

This rivalry needs to be revived

[u/iFinesseThePlug]

Oh yeah I would totally do this to our rivals on the.......um, also the Bulls?

Goddammit we haven't been relevant enough to have any rivalry in the last 30 years.

[u/rake2204]

There's not many thing that make me feel older than seeing present day Mark Turmell looking all dad-like and whatnot, as though he's aged 27 years or so.

For purists of the game, Turmell was a secret character in NBA Jam, complete with his full mane of hair, looking like an MTV veejay and whatnot.

Turmell's also from Bay City, Michigan and had a tendency for slipping in Pistons Easter Eggs when he could. Since Midway (Jam's company) was located in Chicago, I think there was a stronger-than-normal tendency for Turmell to stick it to his local brethren. Beyond the Bulls-Pistons code, there was also a pop-up in another game he created, Total Carnage, where after giving instructions, it randomly reads, "Bulls rule now, Pistons will rule the NBA again".

The red and blue paint of the original NBA Jam also doubled as a shout out to DePaul (who let Jam use their gym for reference) and the Pistons.

For any Jam fans, I recommend Reyan Ali's NBA Jam book which covers its history pretty extensively. It wasn't until reading this book that I realized Turmell also created Smash TV, another one of my all-time faves.

Edit: Two last things, which I think some of you guys may find of interest:

1. The NBA Jam licence pitch video is out there on YouTube, the one they used to try to convince the league to allow them to use the NBA license. At that time, the NBA had never delved into the arcade market (and barely the console market). They had lots of reservations and initially declined. Pretty cool to see the pitch though.

2. The voice of NBA Jam, Tim Kitzrow, recorded some R-rated lines back in the day that were obviously shelved. But those versions resurfaced years later and now there's gameplay footage on YouTube featuring his R-rated lines. For example, a blocked shot turned into, "Get that shit outta here!"

[u/BloodyAxeOfKhorne]

I got the character select music stuck in my head now...

HILLDOG!!!

GEORGE CLINTON PFUNK WOOOOO!!!

These guys knew how to have fun making a game.

[u/Sojuboy]

Starts at 19:40

[u/[deleted]]

The title isn't 100% correct. The special code makes the Bulls miss any shots in the last second against the Pistons. So if the Bulls' final shot is at like 5 seconds left in the game, then they can still win. Also, if the Bulls are already winning and do a shot in the last second, then it will still be guaranteed to miss.

[u/Glowwerms]

I just watched this the other day, great little documentary. After watching I couldn’t stop thinking about owning one of the rare cabinets he mentioned that has Jordan on it

If anyone here is into video game history and/or programming, highly recommend watching any of the other War Stories they have