There are three specific aspects that I would consider related by virtue of them sounding the same and being mentioned at the same time, although a bit of that is due to personal experience. One of them is as mentioned in the title: "FOMO", short for "fear of missing out". It surely refers to how some people don't want to miss out on things, which is good... except for the developed "fear" in this case. It also has a certain applicability to Pokémon, and the goal of this post is to elucidate how that may be - or in some cases already is.
Most specifically, the aspect has been tied to Pokémon Go, for which it can be said that the game exploits the aspect to get its players (Trainers) involved in all the game's events and thereby spend what is needed to do so. This works for the most part, as quite a bit of the things introduced in the game have appeared once or a couple of times at one point and then not repeated again for a very long time. Knowing this, Trainers become influenced to play through and preclude the fear - and then repeat this as more and more events appear.
With other continuously updated Pokémon games like Café Remix and Unite, the aspect also manifests itself in these games in much the same ways, goading players to play to preclude the fear and get the Pokémon and/or items that they need, for which the appearances could be sparse. Meanwhile, the main series games are not constantly updated, but it has started to get into the act of having a number of limited-time events that effectively act the same as ones that are present in the continuously updated games.
Physical Pokémon goods like merchandise and TCG cards are obviously not immune to the aspect, and especially for the latter, for which it is very well-known that scalpers have gotten quite a foothold on the goods. For merchandise, a lot of it is certainly limited by the nature of the goods being produced in only certain quantities and for restrained venues and periods like the recent pop-up store at the World Championships. The aspect thus plays on the effects of these circumstances to influence fans in obtaining the goods... if they can.
Considering the above and how the aspect manifests itself in other areas of life, it's very much a psychological matter, and that matter can be quite pervasive. For Pokémon, it does have the effect of drawing attention to its goings-on and making sure that fans can take part and get something out of them before the goings-on are displaced and the fans miss out. The resolution of this may be questionable in some ways, but there is no question that the aspect is psychologically real, and that's for people (in particular, Pokémon fans) to grapple with.
One year ago: The Matter of "Specific Evolution" in Unite
Two years ago: Pokémon Go Fest 2023 (Global), Day 2
Three years ago: Pokémon Go Fest 2022 (Global), Finale
Four years ago: Pokémon Go Event Rollup, 8/27/2021
Five years ago: Road to the 25th Anniversary
Six years ago: Blogging on Blogs: The Pokémon Go Official Blog
Seven years ago: My Pokémon Groups on Facebook
Eight years ago: In-Town vs. Out-of-Town Events
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