Call me a suspicious individual if you like, but I'm harbouring serious concerns about venerable British developers Codemasters. Over the last few days the respected independent company have announced two surprise resignations from fairly big names, as Gavin Raeburn and Trevor Williams each apparently cut and run.

Gavin Raeburn had the unenviable task of refreshing two of Codemasters flagging franchises, Colin McRae and TOCA, reborn as the Dirt and Grid series respectively.

Given the saturation of the racing genre it can't have been easy, and I imagine Mr Raeburn is heartily sick of the sight of steering wheels by now. Could this be the reason he made for the exit last week?

Nope, says Codemasters' executive producer Gavin Cheshire, it's just that Colin McRae DiRT 2 is so awesome that Raeburn's decided to throw in the towel.

"After successfully rebooting two of Codemasters’ heritage franchises as Dirt and GRID, executive producer Gavin Raeburn has moved on to pastures new ... Following the recent success of the award winning DiRT 2, it’s positive for any individual to move when they feel they’re at the top. ... He has ... our thanks for all the successes enjoyed during his time at Codemasters."

Sounds amicable enough, right? But wait, there's more! The Birmingham arm of Codemasters (formerly Swordfish Studios of 50 cent: Blood on the Sand fame) have lost their top man, as Trevor Williams also takes his leave. Not even a week after their last goodbye message, Codemasters haven't offered any explanation, merely stating that Alex McLean will take up the empty role.

Even though the current economic climate makes it a dangerous time to be storming out of jobs without a safety net, I always expect these things to come in threes. Will Codemasters be bleeding any more key players over the coming days?