BAM! Entertainment went public only weeks after the September 11 attacks, in one of the quietest markets for new offerings in years. Its bankers had once hoped for $12 to $14 a share. It sold at $8. Ray Musci founded the San Jose company in 1999 to publish games for a new generation of machines: the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Game Boy Advance. Many of its games starred well-known licensed characters.

Familiar Faces on Crowded Shelves

BAM bet that familiar brands would let a young publisher stand out on crowded store shelves. It signed licenses for cartoon and movie properties and paid outside studios to build the games. That let it release titles quickly. It also meant paying large sums up front for licenses, with no guarantee the games would sell. It released games for nearly every major console and handheld of the period.

Game Over

BAM priced its IPO at $8 a share in November 2001 and listed on Nasdaq as BFUN. Several of its games sold poorly, and the cost of licenses and development outran revenue. The company cut staff. It sold its London studio to VIS Entertainment, then later bought VIS. Nasdaq delisted BAM in 2004. It released a few more titles until 2005, when it went out of business after a bankruptcy filing.

Cover: Fireworks at Ryōgoku (Ryōgoku hanabi), from the series One Hundred Famous Views of Edo (Meisho Edo hyakkei), Utagawa Hiroshige. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for fireworks over a river.