I remember reading something by the designer of the Putt-Putt adventure games where he ran up against this issue.
The Putt-Putt games were adventure games designed for kids, say 6-10 years old or so. And obviously since they're adventure games, you have to pick up everything that isn't nailed down because it might be useful in a puzzle later.
But the publishers of the game didn't want to encourage kids to just pick everything up in real life! So the developers had to, every time Putt-Putt picked something up, make him say "This looks like somebody lost it; maybe I can find the owner!".
The Putt-Putt games were adventure games designed for kids, say 6-10 years old or so. And obviously since they're adventure games, you have to pick up everything that isn't nailed down because it might be useful in a puzzle later.
But the publishers of the game didn't want to encourage kids to just pick everything up in real life! So the developers had to, every time Putt-Putt picked something up, make him say "This looks like somebody lost it; maybe I can find the owner!".