Computer games are said to have physical, intellectual as well as psychological effect on children. In this age of blame culture where parents are looking for someone or something to blame for their childs poor development. It is easy to point the finger at computer games for their all their childs problems. I will look at the positive and negative effects and give my own opinion on this subject. 
The birth of computer games started with the first home console the Magnavox Odyssey released in 1972. This slow and basic console seems laughable against todays super consoles, but this was the start of the computer game revolution. Like any new industry it needed the right market to sell too. These early simple games were aimed at children the main target group of most multi million pound industries. These games were simple and entertaining, but not educational. It wasnt until the 1980 10 years after the birth of computer games that it was seen as a possible educator in the classroom. As computers were used in classroom it was found that they had a positive effect on child learning. It was also at this time that new home computer consoles where being played in households all around the world. These new consoles had more exciting and engaging games for the industries main market, children.
These new games tested children and gave some positive signs. For example children with an inferiority complex, lack of self-confidence are seen to be gaining help from playing video games. Video games have also been included in the therapy for children with such psychological problems. In playing video games, a child gets a sense of participation, a sense of achievement, thus building his/her self-confidence. Children, after playing video games begin to feel excited about their lives, they start feeling positive and enthusiastic. This enables them to defeat their psychological disorders to a certain extent. A lonely child can acquire social presence after becoming a fan of video games. 
The positives for playing computer games seem good and encouraging, but with anything there are always negatives to the positives. The negative effects of playing computer games include increase in emotional disorder symptoms, increase in and behavioural disorder symptoms, decline in verbal memory performance, somatic complaints, attention problems, ADD or ADHD and detrimental school performances to name just a few.
I have stated both the negative and positive effects of children playing computer games to give a fair representation of both sides of the story. In my opinion I feel that computer games like anything used to excess can have negative effects especially on children. The negatives are well documented, I feel even more so than the positive effects that most people tend to over look when discussing the subject. It is also my view that the negative effects are related to the amount of time that the games are played for. Any type of entertainment used to excess is damaging, for example TV which negative effects are well documented. I also feel the type of game played by children is a contributing factor to the problem for example a violent game played by a child will always have negative effects on a young impressionable mind. To get positive effect from computer games there needs to be parental input from the parents. Such things as monitoring the time they play games, the sort of games they play and the effects positive or negative it has on their child. I also feel it is down to certain level of laziness on the parents part for not interacting with their own children and supplying them with the right human interaction needed to develop physical, intellectual and psychological skills. I believe with these simple steps there is no reason why computer games should have any negative physical, intellectual or psychological effects on children.