Grid Management: The Psychological Satisfaction of Inventory Tetris in Modern Role-Playing Games

You are deep in a virtual dungeon, surrounded by epic loot. Before you can pick up that legendary broadsword, you must pause the game, open a menu, and spend five minutes rotating health potions, discarding old boots, and reorganizing a grid of tiny squares. This is "Inventory Tetris," and for millions of gamers, it is arguably more satisfying than the actual combat.

Why do players tolerate—and even enjoy—what is essentially digital bookkeeping? Spatial inventory systems, famously popularize...