Tamara Miner
Tamara Miner plays a crucial part in keeping League of Legends running for millions of avid players.
In Summoner’s Rift, player-controlled champions vie to destroy the enemy Nexus. Along the way they will traverse the jungle, encounter scuttle crabs, battle dragons and possibly slay Baron Nashor, all the while contending with turrets, inhibitors and minions.
If that sounds like gibberish to you, where have you been? The wildly popular online game League of Legends is the most played PC game in the world, with more than 67 million players battling for victory on its virtual fields every month. The 2015 League of Legends World Championships drew millions of online viewers and paid a hefty cash prize.
Tamara Miner, a 2008 information systems graduate and now product manager at Riot Games’ headquarters in Los Angeles, is in the heart of the action — where she ensures her fellow engineers have the tools they need to make their lives easier and keep the game running smoothly.
Miner didn’t start out in the gaming world. At Drexel, her co-op opportunities sent her to Comcast Corp. and then to Microsoft Corp., where her connections helped her land a job straight out of college. “It kick-started my career, graduating with a year and a half of work experience,” she says. After graduation, she spent a few years in enterprise software working on cloud products — but a lot of her friends were working at game studios, and it looked great. “I asked myself, ‘Why am I not doing something for my day job that I am already dabbling in and passionate about? As interesting as enterprise services are, I could be building games instead!’”
So she signed onto the League of Legends team, where she supports the infrastructure and tools that the developers need to expand and refine the game. In order to keep up player interest, designers must be constantly reinventing worlds, adding new capabilities, twists and turns. To do this, new elements must fit seamlessly into existing play. Miner makes sure the developers have all the technological capabilities they need to do the job. Miner is to some extent a rare element, as a woman in the world of serious gaming. While gender hasn’t been an impediment, it has certainly attracted attention, as when Forbes named her one its 30 Under 30 in gaming last year.
“I never noticed until I won an XBox Women in Gaming award,” Miner reflects. “At the industry luncheon that Microsoft puts on every year, I suddenly realized how often I am the only woman in the room. Ultimately, what is relevant is how well I do my job, not my gender. That said, I still see a lot of room for improvement across the industry and we all could do better. I try to approach any situation with humor, honesty, and an open mind, which tends to defuse any tension and allows open discussion.”
While Miner tries to find time to play League every day, she said the greatest fun comes when masses of fans gather to share their enthusiasm and skills. This year’s North American championships took place in New York’s famed Madison Square Garden.
“The most invigorating thing is going to one of these events and being part of the crowd,” she says. “It’s more exciting than being at a hockey game. The entire stadium becomes completely engrossed in the gameplay!” — Adam Stone
