China’s games regulator the State Administration of Press & Publication has approved 97 new video games taking the overall number to 989 since the process restarted.
Translated by Niko Partners analyst Daniel Ahmad, the new list of approvals included intellectual property such as Games of Thrones and Battlerite.
According to Google Translate, other game titles including One Punch Man, Angry Birds and Dragon Ball have also been registered.
You can see the full list of the 97 titles to be approved here.
First foreign IP
In March 2018, China imposed a games licensing ban freezing all submissions for new games. At the beginning of 2019, the process restarted with 80 new games approved ending the freeze, however the process has once again been frozen for new titles while the regulator works through its backlog.
The latest batch of approvals is significant as it is the first time foreign IP has been featured since the restart.
From the overall number for the year, Tencent has had 10 new games approved while NetEase has had four. Two of Tencent’s and one of NetEase’s were found to be from a foreign IP.