I didn't actually know that about their patreons! interesting. Anyway, I also don't believe that hotpink would have a legal claim to shut down LL, because there's actually not very much you have to do to distinguish an IP before you're no longer legally liable. my point was more, as you stated, they wouldn't even need to. a legal threat is all that's needed, because even the prospect of defending oneself in court can become prohibitively expensive. One studio would have the built-up cash reserves to initiate or defend in a court case, the other would not.
To be clear, I don't believe this drama happened for no reason. I do believe this was a matter of ego, and that frequent fan comparisons between the project in their comment section just served to needle them. But there's a big difference between ego damage and annoyance and actually feeling threatened. That being said, the information about the studio patreons does actually shine a different light about their comparative monthly incomes, so you're actually right about that claim claim of threat holding water.
Also, though this doesn't effect your argument being right overall, I find your claim that "hotpink having a million downloads should make them feel more threatened of competition" is very silly. Though I still don't personally believe this was a move made out of economic greed, a better argument in your favor might be "by their own admission, TL's explosion in downloads is largely due to ticktock and twitter, audiences who are comparatively less loyal and much less likely to spend money then audiences on itch.io. people on tiktok have no idea what Lovecraft Locker is, but they're not the ones who vote with their wallets."
edit: oh, you weren't actually the commenter who pointed out their patreons. w/e, the point still stands that it's valid