There's a variety of ways a game can capitalize on the gamer's otherwise dormant obsessive-compulsive disorder: The attache case in Resident Evil 4 that forces you to stop mid zombie rampage to calculate the optimal ratio of grenade launchers to marijuana plants; the Western RPG that gives you a house to meticulously decorate between dragon battles; the Japanese RPG that gives you a tree of crystals to arrange between large-breasted cosmo-schoolgirl battles.

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I first realized how dangerous this practice was while playing a game called Suikoden II -- it was a fairly obscure JRPG in the late '90s whose main draw was the whopping 108 different characters to collect, level, build up and equip. That aspect alone is already dangerously close to triggering a bloody organization frenzy down in the nerd pool, but the second game also gave you a whole damn castle to customize, evaluate, audit and meticulously categorize.



"You're killing me! I'm 19! I have things to do! Weed to smoke! Girls to not talk to!"

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To this day, I could not tell you a thing about the story or gameplay, but I bet I could still navigate those equipment menus in my sleep. The realization that I was no longer actually having fun in my off-time came after I loaded up the game, spent two hours swapping the best equipment between characters and then shut down the PlayStation to head into class. Only hours later did I realize that I had spent my entire morning actively not playing a video game, opting instead to do some interior decorating and light accounting. And all this as I sat in my own filthy, neglected room, idly wondering what happened to that sandwich I lost in the closet last week.