One thing that I always enjoyed about booster boxes pre gen 4 was the box art. Each box has a unique identity and design. Nowadays, booster boxes are very dull and lack the originality of the original boxes. I think elite trainer boxes are the new booster box. By no means is the design comparable to the original booster boxes, but I believe it’s the closest thing we have in modern tcg. Thiughts? Cosmic eclipse ETB, generations ETB, and hidden fates are a few examples of nice looking designs. Also, some of these ETB’s such as plasma storm are very difficult to find.
8/10 packs < 36 packs
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Back when most of those booster boxes came out, there weren’t so many different products being released by TPC. They release a lot of different types of products now, booster boxes, ETBs, EX/GX/V boxes, etc. All of these products sort of have their own identity, some more than others.
The identity of an ETB is to look somewhat nice, and come with some extras. That takes a lot more effort on TPC’s end, and you pay for it. Standard ETBs are $40 MSRP, and come with 8 packs, so barring any kind of deal you’re paying $5 per pack.
The identity of booster boxes have become a way for TPC to pump out packs, and sell them in bulk. They’re not designed to be a high effort product, they’re a vehicle to deliver cheap packs in large amounts. They also aren’t sold in big box stores, where a lot of these other products are sold. EX/GX/V boxes (notice how all of these are plastic so you can see what’s inside) and ETBs are designed to catch people’s (kid’s) eyes in a store.
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Fully agree, the only modern sealed I make an effort to collect is the holiday/special set ETBs.
The design language on modern boxes is an overwhelming mess. ETBs are better designed, cheaper and store better.
The boxes are not intended for customers in their sealed form, but the packs inside are.
The ETBs, however, are intended for purchase. It makes sense why there would be a bigger focus on making the ETB look and feel more enticing as a product.
We are such a small percentage who collect the boxes sealed, although this has seen growth.
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Etb’s are sought after when a set doesn’t have booster boxes. The difference in demand for etbs is night and day for sets with booster boxes.
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I am really a fan of the ETB and I have a small collection of sealed ones from my favorite sets. They fit into my budget better when I only am able or only wanting to purchase one for the collection, just to have a piece of the newest set without committing to a whole box. I love the ETB’s sturdiness and how each set’s cover highlights just one or two Pokémon. (three in the case of HF) I feel like 8-10 sealed, unweighted packs are exciting enough to think that *maybe* an amazing hit could be inside. In addition each box comes with a pack art poster on the inside of the cover, and a set list book! Set lists always make me feel more involved with the product by getting to view what I could be getting inside. ETBs feel very complete to me, knowing I have a little bit of everything the set has to offer in one small box. I just wish that I was into sealed product back when I was opening up Plasma/early XY sets and had picked up those boxes. I was just into ripping product at the time, oh well 
I see what you mean. Especially with the new sword and shield stuff. However, there are a few outliers such as primal clash with ETB’s almost twice the price of a booster box. It could be the amount of supply in ETB’s is much less than the supply of booster boxes. Idk
yeah what pratt said, ETB can be viewed as booster boxes for sets without them.
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I see what you mean
For a time evolutions ETB’s had doubled in price while the booster boxes hadn’t budged at all, which makes sense considering how mass produced the booster boxes where. But that was temporary as they released more ETB’s at walmart and then the entire set boomed hard afterwards.
That is the only instance I can think of were a ETB was outperforming the booster box. But it was only temporary.
Personally I prefer booster boxes. There’s more packs and more value. I only collect sealed ETBs from sets which lack booster boxes, like Generations.
Danny Phantump recently made a video where he quoted prices of every ETB from all the sets. Some of the numbers were quite insane, especially those from the B&W era. These ETBs have 1/4 of the packs in a booster box, yet many sell for more than 1/2 of the price of a booster box.
I think this is all really just a product of there being limited supply of ETBs. There’s not enough to go around for the growing number of ETB collectors.
If one wants to get incredibly speculative it might be possible to make more money investing in ETBs. However, I think it’s riskier. Who knows if the ETB craze will always last. If it doesn’t, then the ETBs will be seen as having less intrinsic value, and that would hurt it as an investment.
ETBs really are the new booster boxes in some cases because we now have special sets with the etb being the top pack product. Booster boxes are still the top for me though. I still like the box art on boxes more. It speaks to the set where as the etbs tend to look plain to me.
ETBs and packs like “Alakazam” are so incredibly _wasteful_. Both in packaging and components, I never get any value out of anything other than the packs. I understand some people like to play the TCG IRL but why must we pay an unnecessary tax with components I simply will never use. I prefer the japanese releases that always have 10x pack boxes for 5500 yen as well as the occasional premium box (but never in replacement of). ETBs feel like a wasteful money grab.
I’m just a pessimist. In my opinion, ETBs are just TPCI’s ploy to get people to spend $40/$50 on Pokémon cards in one trip to the store as opposed to $4. These, along with other less (and more) expensive collection boxes change the experience of collecting for modern kids vs. when many of us were collecting. In my circle of friends, we would only get 1 or 2 packs a week (at most) to open *if* our parents were nice enough to buy us cards. Now, kids rip 4-10 packs at a time in one sitting. On one hand, they make sense of these huge sets with 20 secret rares - more packs seem to be opened, so there’s more cards to enjoy. That said, based on my small time back in the hobby (since last March) - I think booster boxes remain to be the most important item to collectors, and the current, perhaps “mundane,” designs are just a snapshot in the history for how they look. Nobody really cares about dice and card dividers, after all (at least I don’t).
Casual collectors will always be drawn towards an ETB due to the lower price point. You feel like you still get a good experience of a set opening eight packs, and some like the players guide, sleeves etc.
They aren’t targeting us - We know we’ll get guaranteed pull rates and more value from booster boxes of course.