While July’s charts finally began showing signs that the continual drop in monthly active users (MAU) was tapering off, this past month has witnessed new falls. Of the veterans to this list, 16 experienced losses, with most well north of a million users. However, while some blame can be placed on Facebook’s constant changes and updates to the platform, the appearance of four new titles — two of which are not from the major social game developers — suggests that social game players may be looking for fresh ideas, and not always iterations on the same concept. From the vastness of Playfish’s Pirates Ahoy to the highly polished clubs of Booyah’s Nightclub City, the games that are trying to raise the bar in both design and creativity have also been the ones that are growing fastest.

It’s important to keep in mind that many of the largest games on this list also launched long ago, like Playfish’s Petville and Zynga Poker. Perhaps we’re starting to see some natural decline among the oldest titles?

As a side note, even with the applications that have lost numbers, it may not be as bad as it appears. Facebook has had a number of reporting bugs that may have skewed MAU counts for some games, giving them higher than normal numbers.

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