Has the economy really fallen so far off a cliff that we have to resort to simple pleasures? Socializing with our family members, giving up on televisions, computers and video games – all in favor of moving little pawns around on a board? Apparently so. Mattel and Hasbro are looking for board games to come back in a big way, and not those smartassed ones like “Taboo” that we played in the rip-roaring ’90s and early half of the Naughts. (I hated Taboo so hard, because apparently giving “_____ in the front, poker in the rear” as a clue when trying to get your stodgy law-school teammates to cough up the word “liquor” is, actually, taboo.)

The big toymakers are looking for a revival of depression-era hit Monopoly, and Candy Land:

“When you get into this type of economy, where the consumer does not have the kind of spendable income that they had previously, they tend to do more things as a family,” Neil Friedman, president of Mattel brands, said in a telephone interview. “That tends to be games.”

U.S. board-game sales rose 6 percent to $794 million last year, while total toy sales declined 3 percent, according to researcher NPD Group Inc. Game sales have risen since last summer, when dwindling disposable income made the “staycation” a popular alternative to holiday travel, according to Reyne Rice, a consultant at the Toy Industry Association Inc. in New York.

“When you buy a $20 game, it can last,” Rice said in an interview. “You can pull it out year after year.”

If you don’t know Monopoly’s history, Charles Darrow crudely etched the board on a piece of linoleum in 1934, when unemployment stood at 20% and people didn’t have much to do other than stand around and stare at the holes in their socks. Nowadays, it could probably use an update, with Chance cards where Warren Buffett takes a position in your railroad, a massive bubble pops and the price of houses is suddenly 60% off, and, of course, a provision that the bank gets nationalized and the designated banker gets $1.