The recent economic recession, having mostly had little effect on the well-being of the video game industry, appears to be taking its toll. According to this developmag.com article, the past few months have been turbulent waters for smaller companies that rely on private funding to survive.

Private investors appear to have become reluctant to sponsor game development studios – or anything else for that matter – and the smaller ones that rely so heavily on outside funding in order to establish themselves may be in dire peril. With video games being such high-cost ventures, it appears that many start-up studios (and those that are otherwise not yet self-sufficient) may find themselves struggle to secure (or retain) their funding during the entire development processes of their projects.

Put simply, it may not be such a good time to start that gaming company you’ve always wanted to found, unless, of course, you happen to have a lot of money waiting in the bank to keep yourself going until you can convince someone to let you use their money instead.

(Via Kotaku)