10 Video Game Cuts Made For RIDICULOUS Reasons

10. The NBA Asked Midway To Remove Playable Mortal Kombat Characters - NBA Jam: Tournament Edition

The earliest arcade editions of NBA Jam: Tournament Edition saw developers Midway include characters from their ultra-violent beat 'em up series Mortal Kombat, such as Raiden, Reptile, Scorpion, and Sub-Zero.

But it didn't take long for the NBA to learn of this and request that the four characters - along with other extra players such as the Grim Reaper and King Kong - be removed from the game.

It seems that the NBA didn't have much of a sense of humour where their brand was concerned, preferring not to have their lucrative players associated with fictional characters who rip out spines for fun.

And so Midway, understandably unwilling to throw away a coveted NBA contract or perhaps even risk a lawsuit, had no choice but to comply, not only removing the characters from all subsequent console ports but even updating every arcade cabinet out in the wild.

As a result, the characters can only be accessed today through playing an emulated version of the original arcade game, or being one of the precious few to own an unoriginal, unmodified arcade cabinet.

Though it goes without saying that Mortal Kombat was extremely controversial in the mid '90s, the NBA's humourless approach here was a total overstep.