Board Game Frustration

I love board games. I don't play them that often, because they usually work best for groups of people and most of my time is spent in the company of one or two of my roommates and my dog, but I definitely enjoy them when I get the chance.

Although we have a decent selection at my house right now - Taboo, a couple Trivial Pursuits, Scene It, Scattergories, etc - I wouldn't mind adding to the collection. The problem is that they take up too much space.

And what bothers me even more is that many of these games could just be made as extender packs that come in much smaller packaging and just use the boards from previous games. Does every new version of Trivial Pursuit really need its own board? I mean, how hard could it be to make a new set of cards using the same colors and pie pieces as the original, but with a new theme? Do I really need a 12x12x4 box for Trivial Pursuit 90's Edition, 20th Century Edition, 80's Edition, Genus IV edition, and on and on and on?

When Scene-It came out, I thought it was finally going to be the game to capitalize on the extender pack theory. And they've done more than many of the other games, but I still wish they'd do more. They have a Movie Edition Sequel Pack, and HBO and Turner Classic Movies expansion packs, but they have separate board games only for the TV, Friends, WB 50th Anniversary and Nickelodeon editions. At least the Scene It people sort of have the right idea...

Now, I know it probably has something to do with the profit margin. Game makers can charge more ($30 - $40) for a new game than they could for just the new DVD & card portion, but you'd think they could offer both - the new board and game for people who don't have it yet, and a somewhat cheaper version for those of us that already have the board part. Wouldn't that be nice?

I guess it's just another thing I'll have to fix when I take over the world...