E.B. Updegraff, the new CEO of Des Moines game studio Hatchlings, has a message for other game designers in the industry: “Your grandma is hardcore,” she told an audience at the 2018 Midwest Game Developers Conference. 

When grandma’s a hardcore gamer, she’s a loyal customer, Updegraff says. As the new CEO, Updegraff is personally making it her mission to continue serving the older women traditionally ignored by other game studios in the industry. 

Updegraff joined Hatchlings in early 2017 as marketing director, and had previously worked as marketing manager for a publishing company serving the quilting market; she originally moved to Des Moines as an AmeriCorp VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) volunteer for the Iowa Civil Rights Commission. Currently, Updegraff serves on the board of directors for the Des Moines Children’s Museum. 

During her application process at Hatchlings, Updegraff said she was open about seeking a role that could grow with her and her employer as time allowed — “That’s exactly what happened,” she said. 

When was the decision made?

We [Updegraff and Hatchlings founder Brad Dwyer] first started talking about it after we came out with the Magic Sudoku AR [augmented reality] app. … At that time we were a pretty small team; we had really stretched ourselves to get all that sort of out there and put out, and so talking strategically about what the future looks like — if [AR] was somewhere we were going to focus, if we were going to keep doing what we were doing with Hatchlings. So Brad and I started having conversations about, do we split this up, what does that look like? 

It came to Brad wanting to focus on the AR side of things and developing more initiatives outside of Hatchlings, and my wanting to take Hatchlings and grow it, put more content and games out there. The audience that we have is women over the age of 45 and I’m very committed to that audience, and I think there’s a need for it in this particular market. 

What attracted you to a social gaming company?

It sounds like fun, you know? I’ve been gaming most of my life. I grew up playing games with my parents and my family, very into gaming as a hobby. … Gaming is a really interesting industry in that once you really get into it, you actually start to read more about the industry and read more about games being developed and things like that. Consumers actually tend to be very intelligent about the industry itself, and very well informed. It’s just been about as fun as you would think it would be. 

Tell us about your last talk. 

Earlier this year I went to a conference called GDC [Game Development Conference], which is a big gaming conference in the country. … I found several times when I talked about who my audience was, which is women over the age of 45, the conversation would kind of shut down, and it didn’t always have the most positive reaction to that. The gaming industry is huge, and there’s a lot of different facets to it, and different types of companies putting out different content. The free-to-play market, especially for women over the age of 45, there’s a lot of either preconceived notions about it, or since that’s not a valuable audience the people who are successful in that audience kind of stumble into it and then realize how valuable the audience is. 

A big point of my talk that I gave [at MGDC] … was talking about why that audience in particular is valuable. That audience is far more sophisticated than the industry [thinks], and that there are enormous possibilities, a lot of potential for growth there as I see it. I think that’s something that I’m going to focus on as CEO at Hatchlings: continuing to reach out to that audience in a way that I don’t think they’ve been courted before, and really respecting that audience for the sort of gaming group that they are. 

We have a whole industry that is operating off data that is using all these preconceived notions on not only what it is to be a gamer, but how gamers buy and how they behave. We just live in a society where the default is looking at how men behave, and then following those patterns to form the rest. I think as a woman, and having women on my team and knowing women who game, there’s an insight into that.

It was funny — after that talk, I had a couple of women come up and talk to me who are also running their own studios … they’re talking about, “I’m spinning off my company so I can specifically focus on this particular audience … because no one else is doing it.” 

Hatchlings is moving with Gravitate Coworking Downtown — tell us about your new space.

Hatchlings has been in the startup community for a pretty long time. Brad’s been very involved with the startup community, and part of that is supporting spaces like Gravitate, or Startup City before that — he actually had a place there. So with Gravitate moving to this new office, we decided that even though we’re getting bigger and we’re planning on growing, Gravitate is still a good fit for us. Part of that is connecting with the community that we’re in, supporting that. 

One of the things Brad and I talk about is not only what we do internally as a company, but with the community that we’re in with Des Moines, with the resources we have at our disposal, making choices that reflect what we want our community to be. We want places like Gravitate — we want a startup community, we want a tech community that is strong in Des Moines. 

What’s the best advice that you’ve gotten as you transition to CEO?

The thing that’s surprised me the most is the support I’ve gotten. It’s not necessarily one sage bit of wisdom that someone has shared with me. I think the work that I’ve done in my career along the way has definitely aided me in stepping into this role. But the people who I become connected with — like Geoff Wood at Gravitate and a lot of the people who are doing amazing things at Gravitate, but then also people we brought in who have worked at places like Dwolla and other companies around town — amazing people who I’ve been connected with, who are really willing to talk and share and brainstorm [are important]. 

I think Des Moines is just one of those places where you can have coffee with anyone; you just need to make the connection — you know someone who knows them. I think that’s incredibly unique to this community, and I’ve definitely utilized that. 

Is there a book, show, music or podcast you’ve been hooked on lately?

I’ve been watching a lot of the GDC Vault. … If anyone is interested in the business or industry side of game development, they have a ton of free videos up on their vault, and you can buy access to more, but the free ones they have are incredible.