Q&A 1 Inventory, Encumbrance

This is the first one of these that I've done and it may be disastrously unsuccessful... The idea is I ask a question and try to get as many answers/discussions as possible from as wide a spectrum as I can. 

Question 1: Why is it that encumbrances and inventory management can be such an interesting element of tabletop roleplaying games and it's generally such a non-meaningful element of video (RP)games?

Like, this has meant a lot of fun and anxiety around the table:

And this has mostly meant I need to buy some more town portal scrolls:

attributions: OD&D (Volume 1), Diablo 2