Scholars and game industry trade organizations reiterated their long-held stance earlier this week in court papers filed in a St. Louis County trial attempting to strike down a county ordinance that criminalizes the sale or display of violent video games.

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The crux of the argument for striking the law: Studies that persuaded a district court judge that violence in games causes children to behave violently were distorted.

"Seemingly common-sense notions do not always turn out to be correct," the brief, filed by the Free Expression Policy Project and 33 university researchers, said. "And researchers who attempt to reduce the myriad effects of art and entertainment to numerical measurements and artificial laboratory experiments are not likely to yield useful insights about the way that viewers actually use popular culture."

Researchers have sought to study the effects of new forms of media for years -- from 1928 sociological studies of movie violence to Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman's 10-year battle against violent imagery in all forms of entertainment.

Lieberman is not alone in viewing a direct connection between violence in video games and aggressive behavior in children.

Retired Army Lt. Col. David Grossman, founder of the Killology Research Group, likens the video-game industry's position to early claims by the tobacco industry that smoking didn't cause cancer.

"In the end, we're just asking them to enforce their own industry's ratings systems," said Grossman, referring to the ratings that determine games' age-appropriateness. "They can do what they want to, and say all day long that the American Medical Association and the surgeon general are wrong, but the research (into the link between games and aggression) is going on."

There have been more than 1,300 studies on violence and media, but researchers have not proven a direct link exists between playing violent games and perpetrating real-world violence. Grossman said he expects a new round of studies to definitively connect interactive games and behavior within the next year.

But there is little doubt that video games are popular entertainment. The industry took in over $8 billion last year, placing it ahead of Hollywood and just behind the music industry.

Movie studios continue to scour the world of video games for bankable titles, and producers haven't shied away from violence. One studio recently signed a deal to make Doom a motion picture.

Cable networks have climbed on board as well. Threshold Entertainment, which controls the martial arts franchise Mortal Kombat, announced the launch of Blackbelt TV. The 24-hour channel will feature live karate and boxing championships and kung fu films.

However, veteran talk show host Phil Donahue has long spoken out against violent imagery in video games. In 1972, he invited Long Island mother Ronnie Lamb to bring her message to his show and launch her campaign to ban video games. Twenty years later, Donahue took up the cause again on his MSNBC program, lambasting MIT professor Henry Jenkins -- one of the researchers who filed a brief in the Missouri case -- for his defense of video games.