You ever try to tinker around in your source code and think, WTF is all this shit? It’s confusing and devilishly intricate? Sometimes when I’m trying to make something work, I go look at a site that has it right and learn from there. But apparently even some of those sites have the demonic code thing way worse than me. Turns out viral ASCII image ads for the Dante’s Inferno video game we linked to recently are popping up in the source code of prominent nerd and gamer sites. Talk about targeting your demographic. (Ganked from Darren Wershler’s news feed… In related news, Darren has just agreed to join Bookninja to do a regular column on video games and literature… Watch for it!)

The Dante’s Inferno promotional campaign has had its share of ups and downs (”acts of lust,” anyone?) but this latest effort is absolutely sublime: Someone – my money’s on Lucifer – has been making additions to the source code of some of the most popular sites on the internet, adding twisted ASCII art, passwords and a link: hellisnigh.com.

Ars Technica says the first image was discovered at Digg.com and was quickly acknowledged by publisher Chas Edwards. “Since Digg’s early days, ASCII art has been ingrained in our site’s culture,” he said. “We’re thrilled with the opportunity presented by our partnership with Electronic Arts and the Dante’s Inferno team – incorporating ASCII art into advertising on Digg, while providing the 40 million users in the Digg Community first access to the promotion code.”

Other sites that have discovered this mysterious infernal infestation include GameSpot, IGN, GamesRadar, Kotaku, Dailymotion and WWE.com. Are there more?