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Sure are a lot of zoomers in this thread, who didn't know the world existed until they gained awareness.
Shit like store exclusives have existed since millions of years ago, when cave apes could only find bananas in Jungle de la Lake instead of Jungle de la Rock.
Shit like pic was a JC Penny catalogue exclusive 30 years before most of you were born. It wasn't exclusive because FOMO, it was exclusive because Hasbro wanted JC Penny to order more of their products. So if people wanted the Cobra Missile Command center, they could only get it mail order through JC Penny, and since people are already making one order, they might as well buy even more shit. This is generally how exclusives have existed since at least the 1970s. It's not for FOMO or feeling special thing, but a backend deal to push MORE products out there.
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Yes, this means that exclusives make toylines easier to get
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Sometimes exclusives exist only because no one else wanted to order the products. The 1:18 GI Joe line after the 2nd movie in 2012 existed as a TRU exclusive because Target, KMart, Walmart, etc didn't want to order anymore GI Joes or didn't order enough to make shipping worthwhile. So Hasbro offered to TRU the GI Joe line if they ordered a lot more GI Joes than they normally would.
Without exclusives, toylines and specific toys WOULDN'T exist, because they were only created from the very specific circumstances by a specific retailer.
The only difference between the 1900s and 2000s is the fact that marketing shit is easier than ever, and communities can be targeted directly super cheaply, so fan are made more aware of every little thing. And kids and manchildren have always lorded their hard to find/popular things since shiny rocks existed.
