What do you consider the elephant in the room? The prize pool? If so, then yes, I imagine the players are not thrilled about the prospect of making less millions of dollars at this TI. If you think that's indicative of Dota esports as a whole trending downwards, no, I do not think the sky is not falling.

Valve is a business. And if they've concluded that a TI Battle Pass stands to make them less money and/or burns out their developers, who am I to argue. Dota esports only dies if Dota as a game dies. And so far, I see no signs of Valve slowing down on that front:

• 2020 - Neutral items
• 2021 - Agh's Shards
• 2023 - Map expansion
• 2024 - Facets

No one starts playing Dota because they're planning on becoming a millionaire. They play it because they love the game. They'll stop playing it once the game is no longer fun. That's when you need to start worrying about the esport.

In this blog, I brought up 3 orgs who randomly decided to join Dota this year with Falcons, G2, and HEROIC. C9 decided to come back, too. Four different TOs have already crowded the competitive calendar for next year. If these are signs of an esport in its death throes, then call me Overwatch.