Publishers Codemasters and graphics card manufacturer AMD have been running a promotion lately whereby purchasers of a card got a free copy of excellent racer Dirt 3. That offer has now been, uh, slightly expanded.

It seems Codemasters had the reserved download codes for the promo - estimated at around 3 million copies of the game - sitting on one of its webservers in plain sight, and over the past couple of days that list has been accessed and passed around, giving anyone who has seen it a free copy of Dirt 3.

While this might seem like an online looter's Christmas come early, there's a catch: the codes are Steam codes, meaning that should Codemasters (or Valve) decide to take action, all they'd need to do would be to go down the list and block the codes for the game. And that's a best-case scenario for "thieves", one that doesn't involve banning.

UPDATE - While it was initially believed that up to 3 million codes had been leaked, I've since taken a look at the master list that was lifted, and what I saw contained "only" 250,000 copies of the game. Now, I may have only seen one list, or an incomplete list, but I'm updating this here for the record anyway!

UPDATE 2 - Codemasters says it's trying to "block" hacker's access to the game.

UPDATE 3 - Reader Antipika let us know that, indeed, the list I saw was but one. He's seen 8 of them, containing a total of 1.7 million keys.

Update 4 — This comes from Codemasters, just this hot second: "You may have heard this weekend, activation keys for free Dirt 3 game vouchers shipping with a few AMD products were compromised. The keys were hosted on a third-party fulfillment agency website, AMD4u.com, and were not on AMD's website. Neither AMD nor Codemasters servers were involved.

We're working closely with everyone to address the situation. AMD will honor all valid game vouchers, but just a heads up, the current situation may result in a short delay before the vouchers can be redeemed."

[thanks for everyone who tipped us about this!]

We've seen plenty of games trying to achieve photographic realism, but how often do we come across attempts to make real life look more like a game? The folks over at Codemasters have done just that, with their latest tie-in video for last month's racing title Dirt 3.

Shot using a tilt-shift lens, this video of Ken Block whizzing around London's Battersea Power Station has the appearance of having been miniaturized or computer-generated.

Dirt 3 is currently out on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC.

A pretty crappy car, maybe, but the point remains: you could still buy a working, actual automobile for the cost of this steering wheel set minted for racing game Dirt 3.

On sale in British stores for £840 (USD$1380), Playseat's DiRT 3 + Logitech G27 deal combines a comfy driving seat, a sturdy frame and a wheel/pedal set into a controller setup that, were your TV big enough, would be as close to the real thing as you could get without a man sitting next to you muttering "easy left".

If $1380 is too rich for your blood, if you order online you get a discount that takes it to...USD$1170 (£709).

Why so much? It's practically a real racing car seat, and is flexible enough to work with most company's steering wheels. Aside from that, it's probably more a case of "a fool and his money".

Playseat DiRT 3 + Logitech G27 [Playseat, thanks jamie!]

Ah, Monaco. A charming Principality, famous for its azure harbors, Grace Kelly and...car rallies. Lots and lots of car rallies. The folks over at Codemasters would like to invite you to this car-racing paradise in their newest gameplay trailer for Dirt 3, giving a glimpse of the title's Rallycross, Gymkhana and Head 2 Head stages.

It's unlikely I'll ever make it to Monte Carlo in this lifetime, so my thanks to Dirt 3 for this virtual substitution.

You know, if you asked me to pick my favourite driving game of the past few years, it wouldn't have the words "Turismo" or "Forza" in the title.

That's because my favourite driving game of the past few years is DiRT 2, which is fast, slippery, gorgeous to watch and, if you've got surround sound, incredible to listen to. It may not have the cars or the seriousness of its more esteemed competition, but by god it knows how to make you feel like you're barely keeping hold of a very fast car.

Its sequel, DiRT 3, is out now. So here's a trailer to get your heart racing as fast as mine is from having played it all day long.

Dirt 3 due out Tuesday, will also include a single-use code to enable online access - a growing trend, if not the new norm, in console games with heavy online components. The "VIP Pass" also comes with a set of five vehicles, and it's free in retail copies. If you get a used copy of the game and the code doesn't work, you'll have to pay Codemasters to get one over Xbox Live or PSN. [MCV]

Codemasters, the studio behind racing games like Dirt and the upcoming F1 2010, is taking another developer to court, accusing it of "poaching staff".

Late last year, Trevor Williams and Nick Wheelwright - former Codemasters executives - broke away from the British studio and formed their own new team, called Playground Games.

Codemasters now alleges, though, that Playground "poached" around a dozen Codemasters employees, who "had access to trade secrets and confidential information to give it a head start of about 12 months in developing and marketing games."

In total, 17 former Codemasters employees have been named in the suit, which also alleges that Playground "disrupted Codemasters' development of its own racing games".

Juicy.

Rival didn't play fair, claims games giant [Daily Mail]

Codemasters, the studio behind racing games like Dirt and the upcoming F1 2010, is taking another developer to court, accusing it of "poaching staff".

Late last year, Trevor Williams and Nick Wheelwright - former Codemasters executives - broke away from the British studio and formed their own new team, called Playground Games.

Codemasters now alleges, though, that Playground "poached" around a dozen Codemasters employees, who "had access to trade secrets and confidential information to give it a head start of about 12 months in developing and marketing games."

In total, 17 former Codemasters employees have been named in the suit, which also alleges that Playground "disrupted Codemasters' development of its own racing games".

Juicy.

Rival didn't play fair, claims games giant [Daily Mail]