Whether Matt really believes that, I'll leave that to everyone's own judgment. (In the last sale, not even close to what Matt predicted he thought was taken in)

And now there are even fewer players, and of the remaining players, even fewer are willing to spend money. So based on the facts, it's pretty clear that this money will not be taken in.

This is simply a nasty tactic, Matt gets paid upfront so forcing the people to repurchase the necessary DEC or credits for the cards from him, which is harmful to the ecosystem because more 'burned' DEC is pumped into circulation, but this is how he squeezes out the maximum profit for himself. And what's the point? Even if the unlikely scenario that the DAO ends up earning more from the sales, what does the DAO get out of it? The only one who serves himself there is Matt. If Matt really wanted something good and he really believed that the sales would bring in so much more DEC, then he could just sell it himself and leave the DAO alone. He could simply say that half of the proceeds from the sale go to Splinterlands and the other half is burned. That would be a good measure that might even increase sales, because more people would believe that something good is happening. But he doesn't do that, instead he's just focused on getting money now, which only breeds more mistrust and ultimately leads to even lower player and sales numbers.