Do we have any idea what the second project actually was? If we know what they wanted it to be, that would tell us more about what they wanted from it. I remember hearing that the work on CoH 2 was cancelled quite some time ago so it wasn't that. I've heard a lot of rumors about what this latest second project was, everything from a new game to a mobile app to a freaking
board game, but nothing solid.
I know one thing that would be interesting to learn. The threats to shutdown the studio a few months before the announcement... were any NCsoft executives let go or replaced around the time those threats started? Because if so, then we might have confirmed our theory that there was one particular exec who actively fought to preserve Paragon/CoH. And if the person who "had our backs" was no longer there, that could explain why we lost the fight.
And y'know, as I think about it, it must not have been about money
at all. I mean, they had a whole second project's worth of people and resources they could have cut to save on money. But I don't remember hearing about thirty or forty layoffs at Paragon a few months before them shutting down. And if Paragon thought it was about money, then they might not like it but they'd damn sure let the second project go before closing their doors completely.
Speaking of the second project, I know that David Nakayama and a few others left CoH to work on it. Does anyone know when they transferred? If it happened around the same time as these threats started, then launching the second project - or at least ramping up its progress rate - might itself have been an attempted response.
*Wanders off to find the archive of the old forums, to look for Z's post about Noble Savage switching projects*
PS: Where you said Hit Streak, did you mean Crosscheck?