China Game Approvals Scraper: NPPA 版号 (Game License & ISBN) Tracker

Track every game approved for release in China, with English platform and genre labels, pinyin, and alerts for new approvals. Full history goes back to 2009.

Every game that launches or monetises in mainland China needs an approval (版号) from the National Press and Publication Administration (NPPA, 国家新闻出版署). This Actor turns NPPA's monthly approval pages into clean, structured data: domestic and imported games, change notices and revocations. The history has 21,000+ records since 2009.

Who is it for?

• Game publishers, studios and investors tracking competitor pipelines and the foreign titles approved for China.
• Market analysts and consultants counting approvals by month, platform, genre and publisher (腾讯, 网易, 米哈游 …).
• Games media and newsletters writing monthly "who got 版号" stories.
• Due-diligence and compliance teams checking whether a game or company actually holds an approval and an ISBN.
• AI agents and data pipelines that need to answer "has game X been approved in China?"

Key features

• 📋 All five NPPA lists: domestic online games, imported online games, imported console games, changes and revocations.
• 🧩 The category column is parsed correctly. NPPA renders it with JavaScript, which most simple scrapers miss. It is split into platforms (Mobile / PC client / Web / Console such as PS5 or Switch) and genre, with English labels.
• 🔤 Pinyin for every game name, to help non-Chinese readers search and sort.
• 🗓️ Full history or any date range (2026-01-01, or relative like 90 days). Only the pages you need are fetched.
• 🔎 Filters: publisher/operator keywords and game-name keywords.
• 🔔 Only-new mode: schedule it monthly and receive only newly approved games.
• 🌐 Polite crawling with retries, plus optional Apify Proxy with China (CN) residential IPs.

How to use it

1. Click Try for free, pick list types and a date range, then click Start.
2. Export as JSON, CSV or Excel, or use the Apify API.
3. For monthly alerts, save a Task with onlyNew = true, schedule it, and connect email, Slack, Google Sheets, Make or Zapier.

Input example

{
  "listTypes": ["domestic_online", "imported_online"],
  "dateFrom": "2026-01-01",
  "publisherKeywords": ["腾讯", "网易"],
  "onlyNew": false
}

Output sample

Real records from the September 2026 NPPA lists:

List	Game	Pinyin	Platforms	Genre	Publisher	Approval no.	ISBN	Date
domestic_online	百变灵兽	bai bian ling shou	Mobile	Casual/puzzle	北京联合出版有限责任公司	国新出审〔2026〕2220号	978-7-498-17573-1	2026-09-29
domestic_online	霸主征途	ba zhu zheng tu	Mobile, PC client	–	天津科学技术出版社有限公司	国新出审〔2026〕2219号	978-7-498-17572-4	2026-09-29
domestic_online	盛世武神	sheng shi wu shen	Mobile, PC client, Web	–	时代新媒体出版社有限责任公司	国新出审〔2026〕2229号	978-7-498-17582-3	2026-09-29
imported_online	3对3街篮	3 dui 3 jie lan	PC client	–	上海昊嘉信息技术有限公司	国新出审〔2026〕2424号	978-7-498-17777-3	2026-09-29
imported_online	热血江湖：重启	re xue jiang hu: chong qi	Mobile	–	上海恺英网络科技有限公司	国新出审〔2026〕2425号	978-7-498-17778-0	2026-09-29
changes	出将入相	chu jiang ru xiang	Mobile, PC client	–	江苏凤凰数字传媒有限公司	国新出审〔2025〕2502号	–	2026-09-29

(Change lists have no ISBN column, hence the dash.)

One full record:

{
  "listType": "domestic_online",
  "listTypeEn": "Domestic online games - approvals",
  "gameName": "百变灵兽",
  "gameNamePinyin": "bai bian ling shou",
  "category": "移动-休闲益智",
  "platformsEn": ["Mobile"],
  "genre": "休闲益智",
  "genreEn": "Casual/puzzle",
  "publisher": "北京联合出版有限责任公司",
  "operator": "北京瀚海智境科技有限公司",
  "approvalNumber": "国新出审〔2026〕2220号",
  "isbn": "978-7-498-17573-1",
  "approvalDate": "2026-09-29",
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.nppa.gov.cn/bsfw/jggs/yxspjg/gcwlyxspxx/202609/t20260930_1011281.html"
}

Other fields: listTypeZh, platforms, changeInfo, revocationInfo, sequenceInList, sourcePageTitle, attribution, isNewSinceLastRun, firstSeenAt, scrapedAt.

Pricing

Pay per event: you pay only for results.

• $0.003 per game record returned, which is $3 per 1,000 records.
• Actor start: $0.00005 per run (per GB of memory), which is negligible.

Typical run	Records	Approx. cost
One month of new domestic approvals	~150-200	~$0.45-0.60
1,000 records	1,000	$3.00
Year to date (2026, all lists)	~1,650	~$5
Full history since 2009	~21,500	~$65

In only-new mode you pay only for records you haven't received before. Use maxItems to cap spending.

FAQ

Where does the data come from? From the public game approval results (游戏审批结果) published by the NPPA at https://www.nppa.gov.cn/bsfw/jggs/yxspjg/. Every record includes its exact sourceUrl and an attribution field.

Is it legal to use? The pages are official public notices. They contain game titles and company names only, with no personal data. The Actor reads them at a low rate and credits the source. The site carries a standard copyright notice, so please review your own use case, especially if you plan to republish in bulk. This Actor is not affiliated with the NPPA. For official verification, use the NPPA website.

How often is the data updated? NPPA usually publishes new lists once a month, often near the end of the month. Changes and revocations are published irregularly. A monthly or weekly schedule is enough.

How does only-new mode work? With onlyNew = true, the Actor remembers the records it has already returned in the key-value store named in stateStoreName. On the next run it returns only records it hasn't seen before. Use a different store name for each alert.

Why are some ISBN or category fields empty? NPPA did not publish ISBNs before 2018, and most lists before 2017 have no category. Change lists have no ISBN column, and their approval number is the original approval being changed. Some months had no approvals at all, such as the 2021-2022 pause.

Is the pinyin an official English title? No. Pinyin is generated automatically (toneless). Game names are kept exactly as published.

Does it work outside mainland China? Yes. In our tests the site responded normally from US servers. If you see timeouts or 403/412 errors, set Proxy configuration to Apify Proxy, group RESIDENTIAL, country CN. Apify bills proxy traffic separately.

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中文说明：中国游戏版号爬虫（国家新闻出版署游戏审批结果）

自动抓取所有游戏版号信息，附英文平台/类型标签和拼音，可回溯到 2009 年（2.1 万多条），支持新版号提醒。

• 覆盖：国产网络游戏、进口网络游戏、进口电子游戏的审批名单，以及变更和撤销信息。
• 字段：游戏名（附拼音）、申报类别（脚本渲染的那一栏已正确解析）、平台和类型（附英文）、出版单位、运营单位、批复文号、ISBN、批准时间、名单类型、来源链接。
• 适合：游戏厂商、投资和研究机构、游戏媒体，以及需要核查版号的尽调团队。
• 功能：可按日期、名单类型、出版或运营单位、游戏名筛选。开启"只看新增"后，每次只返回新获批的游戏，适合每月定时推送。
• 价格：每条记录 $0.003，即 1,000 条 $3。启动费用很低，几乎可以不计。