Everyrealm, a company with holdings throughout the metaverse in real estate, NFTs, and gaming has announced that a host of well-known celebrities are among the latest investors in the ten-month-old company. Venture Capitalists Andreessen Horowitz and Coinbase are also major players in the company’s original funding.

Everyrealm’s latest investors include The Weeknd, Will Smith, Marc Anthony, Nas, Paris Hilton, Gunna, Baby Keem, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Gene Simmons, Lil Baby, Mario Götze, Hannah Bronfman, Fara Leff, Ebonie Ward, Miye Oni, Belly, Pro Logic, NAV, and more, according to a press release from the company.

A $60 million Series A financing round led by Andreessen Horowitz was the initial influx of funds back in February for the company. Everyrealm noted that this latest round gives them access to “hundreds of millions” in capital, but declined to reveal the exact valuation.

“Having such an accomplished roster of people on our cap table is an honor and a testament to the allure of the metaverse opportunity, one where artists and entertainers can foster direct connections with their communities,” said Janine Yorio, CEO of Everyrealm.

The company used help from its Series A investors to recruit the big names to bring some cash to the table. Andreessen Horowitz’s Cultural Leadership Fund team facilitated introductions to The Weeknd, Will Smith’s Dreamers VC, Belly, Pro Logic, NAV, Hannah Bronfman, Wassim “SAL” Slaiby and Amir “Cash” Esmailian — leading to their investment. Electric Feel Ventures, the investment firm led by Post Malone’s management team, worked with Lil Baby to lead a music industry investment syndicate.

Everyrealm is known for its numerous metaverse real estate holdings and developments in leading metaverse platforms including The Sandbox and Decentraland. Everyrealm’s metaverse real estate development projects include Fantasy Islands, an ultra-luxury master planned community in the Sandbox. According to the company, Fantasy Island sold an “associated NFT” megayacht for 150 ETH ($650,000).

With hundreds of millions of dollars at their apparent disposal, Everyrealm just became a major player in the construction of the initial stages of the metaverse.

NFTs have projected themselves into gaming, possibly changing the economics behind the gaming industry and the incentive of players.

“The intersection of NFT and gaming is this, it’s about enabling individuals in these ecosystems to be able to use the things that they were already getting, whether that be skins in Counter-Strike or swords and armor in World of Warcraft, or cards in Hearthstone.” According to Patrick White, CEO of Bitwave, whose also hosting the Enterprise Digital Asset Summit this coming June.

With NFTs the gamer will be able to actually own the items that they earn, sell it and buy cards that they want. Gamers can have an ecosystem and make money through it.

White explained that the idea of monetizing video games with charging a fee of $60 to purchase a game, paying a monthly subscription fee, or paying extra to unlock special features is going to change over time.

Current subscription games such as World of Warcraft and the next generation of subscription gaming services will be free. The gamer will find NFTs within the game, sell it and the gaming company will receive part of the commission on the sale.

“Instead of charging you $12 a month, what they’re gonna do is once a month they’ll have a drop where you can buy a new sword or a new piece of armor or whatever it is, and that will be direct money back to the gaming company. NFTs are going to lead to a total rethinking of the economics of subscription gaming,” White stated.

Not only will it be free to play but NFTs will provide a great motive for players. The time spent playing a video game will become more valuable. NFTs will create a structure where gamers will be getting paid to play in a sense. This is what digital assets are about, creating incentives.

“It’s more about this idea of a totally new business model that relies on incentive structures and economic structures to reward players,” White pointed out.

It makes you wonder if this new monetization in gaming could seep into social media platforms, to keep users engaged. When addressed White explained, “Microtransactions came from the gaming world in many, many different ways. And now they’ve sort of seeped into other parts of the world. I think that what you’re going to see is that gaming will be sort of the leading indicator of creating these attention economies where you get rewarded and the people who will follow that will be the Facebook’s, Twitter’s and Instagram’s of the world.”

Over the next three to five years White discussed that NFTs and digital assets are going to lead to more companies being able to offer better games that are essentially free to play. They will be monetized by either the player simply giving their attention or earning money by finding artifacts and selling them which the company will then get some reward on.