entertainment

EA Sports' NBA Jam Goes Back To The Future

EASports

EA Sports is using some new tools to sell the relaunch of its "old school" basketball game, NBA Jam.

This month, the video game company took to Twitter and Facebook to connect with the pioneering game's fan base. The company enlisted legendary announcer Tim Kitzrow (the voice of the original arcade game) to record the fan favorite catchphrases (submitted via Twitter, with those catchphrases inserted into game play video and sent back to the originators) and featured Orlando Magic superstar Dwight Howard in a "man-on-the-street" viral video in which he randomly dared passersby to challenge him in a game of NBA Jam.

"Social media has become a bigger part of what everyone's doing, and EA Sports has been at the forefront of what consumers are doing," David Le, director of marketing for EA Sports, tells Marketing Daily. "Especially with a game like NBA Jam, where it's so social, nostalgic and 'pick-up and play,' we think there's a genuine excitement about that game."

advertisement

advertisement

The viral efforts proved successful, with 44,000 mentions of the campaign's #boomshakalaka hash tag and 1,220 new followers of EA Sports, and more than 5,000 mentions of @EASports.

This week, EA Sports continues the fun with a video produced in conjunction with comedy Web site Funny or Die. The clip depicts an older (by that we mean late 30s) uncle playing the more advanced games (such as boxing) against his teenage nephew. As the nephew wins easily at every game, he taunts his uncle: ""Why don't you quit? I used to look up to you."

A day later the hapless elder returns wearing '90s-era parachute pants and earphones, and proclaims to his nephew: "I'm going to beat you with [Bill] Laimbeer." Shouting basketball catchphrases from the '90s ("Boomshakalaka!" "Slamajama!"), the nephew's final words: "Why are their heads so big?" -- a joke any fan of arcades in the mid- to late-'90s will understand.

"What it came down to was tapping the core essence of what the game was about," Le says. "It's not about taking people who were fans of jam. It's going back to the simplicity of the game and fun and being social about it."

NBA Jam was first developed as an arcade game by Midway games in 1993. Using a 2-on-2 format, players could choose to be any number of NBA stars during the game play. It was one of the first games to use NBA-licensed teams and digitized likenesses. The current release also features likenesses of well-known people in the public domain such as President Obama, Vice President Biden, former president Bill Clinton, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

"As much as [NBA Jam] is about classic arcade basketball, there is an element of humor and pure fun," Le says. "That's why we wanted to partner with Funny or Die."

Next story loading loading..