Chris Thompson   Chris Thompson on the internet

In what is quite an interesting move, when you think about it, the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) recently signed two video game designers from US games developer Infinity Ward.

It’s interesting because while the CAA has a history of excellence, but its clients are people like Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Oprah Winfrey, and Will Smith. Footballers like David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo are also enrolled, alongside American sporting superstars like LeBron James and Peyton Manning.

But video games? The move puts them right up there, with all these famous faces. I doubt something like this has ever been done before. Certainly, if it has, I haven’t heard about it.

But then, it’s easy to see the duo’s appeal.

Modern Warfare 2 sold 4.7 million units within the first 24 hours of release, generating over $400 million in worldwide sales. But the snowball did not stop there: by January 2010, it had taken over $1 billion. On April 21 this year, the Guinness Book of World Records officially recognised Modern Warfare 2 as the biggest, highest-grossing media release of all time.

There is no more anonymity about them. Their talent – and probably the fact that they made $1 billion in two months – has been recognised in an almost mythical way. And their work has been recognised as art, and as brilliance. Whether the series will ever be the same again without its two top talents is another question altogether.

I went to London today. One of my friends gave me a lift. But I popped into his house for a cup of tea before we went, and he showed me his new, rather wonderful phone system. I must admit, it was pretty fancy. Quite big – bigger than you would expect from such a modern, technological masterpiece – but yes, pretty fancy indeed.

It could play music, among its many and varied features, and it could also be used using only your voice, with no need to dial at all. It had a bluetooth headset that looked quite impressive in itself. Needless to say, he was quite proud of it; happy to be showing it off.

The city was quite fun; we did the whole tourist thing, we went to a few shops here and there, had a late lunch/early dinner. And it was quite a nice day. When I got back, though, almost automatically I had to fire up the broadband and looked up those fancy phones. Not to buy one myself, not really – more just out of curiosity.

Before long I had started looking into Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2, which I tend to do more and more now in the build-up to its release. If you’re into computer games, and in particular first person shooters, this game looks like it’s shaping up to be particularly wonderful.