A sustainable scene wouldn’t have dropped from a $40M prize pool to $4M. The issue is that the esports scene was not self funded, it was funded by a percentage of the base game economy.

The reduction in prize pool being related to the removal of battle pass shows that fans never cared about supporting the esports scene, they only wanted the battle pass for the skins or whatever it is that you get from it.

Even if the Dota 2 esports was sustainable, that would be one game out of dozens.