This text is a comprehensive reading of some of the debates that have started and strongly contributed to structuring game studies since the early 1990s, primarily in the US and Northern Europe. Game studies, a field that is rich in interdisciplinary research, has often been criticized and includes very few studies from the French-speaking world. Yet, it has shaped and analyzed concepts which have a major influence on contemporary research. Without claiming to be an exhaustive inventory of the field, this paper highlights both the contributions and the limits of formal and cultural positions, for scientific production on video games. It also examines more recent work characterized by a social and technical approach to games. The author argues that this approach may enable us to grasp their material and cultural dimensions, including the specific features of the social activity that games are.