GTA 6 made $1 billion before it existed. That's called FOMO

Let me tell you a joke that isn't a joke. GTA 6 is estimated to have made around $1 billion in its first hour of pre-orders. Not the first week. The first hour. For a game that doesn't arrive until November 19. Millions of people paid, today, for something that doesn't exist, that no one has played, that might not even be finished. For comparison: GTA V, the best-selling game on the planet, took three days to hit its first billion. (Before anyone complains in the comments: it's an analyst estimate, Rockstar hasn't confirmed the number. But the line existed, and you were probably in it.)

Rationally, it makes no sense at all. Except the plot goes much deeper, and it has a name: FOMO.

FOMO isn't about the game

FOMO stands for "fear of missing out." And notice something: you're not afraid of missing the game, it'll be there in November, and in December, and next year, probably cheaper. What you're afraid of missing is the moment. The conversation. The group that's already talking about it. The feeling of being in on it. FOMO isn't desire for the object. It's dread of being left outside the party.

You desire because others desire

Here's an insight from psychoanalysis that changes everything. For Lacan, desire isn't yours, or rather, it isn't born on its own inside you. Desire is the desire of the Other: we learn to want by watching what others want. When the whole world rushes to pre-order, the object takes on a glow that doesn't come from it, but from the crowd around it. You're not buying GTA 6. You're buying a spot in the crowd that wants GTA 6. And that's why hitting "buy" brings instant relief: for a second, you belong.

The jouissance the industry sells in advance

The pre-order is a brilliant machine. It sells you not the game but the anticipation, and anticipation is often tastier than the thing itself. As long as the game hasn't arrived, it's perfect: no bugs, no letdowns, it never ends. The industry figured out you can cash in the billion on the fantasy, before delivering any reality. You pay for the image of future pleasure. And the bill comes today.

Why the purchase never fills the hole

And here's the part nobody wants to hear. Even after buying, the restlessness doesn't go away. Along comes the next special edition, the next pass, the next release that "everyone" is already waiting for. That's because the lack FOMO tries to plug isn't a lack of game, it's the lack that constitutes everyone, the emptiness that makes us desire in the first place. No purchase fills it, because it isn't meant to. It's the same machinery we picked apart in the analysis of GTA itself: the object never satisfies, it just pushes the hunger on to the next object.

So what do you do with this?

Relax, this isn't a self-help sermon, and I'm not going to tell you to "live in the present." The more useful truth is much simpler: naming the mechanism already changes your relationship with it. Next time your finger itches toward the pre-order, you don't have to resist like a hero. Just notice, with a smile, that it isn't the game calling you, it's the lack taking a little lap. Then you decide with a bit more freedom. Or you don't. That's fine too.