I've had the option to watch free gems for months, both for BS and RS. I've never purchased gems in RS before, and have had the free gems option pop up consistently for three straight months and it's still popping up. I've bought about 400 gems for bakery story on iOS through purchasing the starter pack about 8 times- and suddenly, poof. No free gems option anymore. Just an option to watch 2 videos a day to reduce cooking time. This has been ongoing for almost a month now, and when the 23rd of April hits, it will be exactly a month since I bought gems for BS. In that time, I could've accumlated 300 gems which basically renders my gems purchase redundant...I've noticed and other players have noticed that buying gems takes away this option and it is completely unfair...the option was a drive for me to play the game as after you master all the recipes, you can't get any more gems. There has to be a fix for this, because I paid money to support the game so I could expand faster, and now I can't expand any more as the option was the only way I could even dream of expanding.
So, I cast doubts that this is a random promotional feature. It seems that this feature is only available if you don't ever pay money to get gems. If there's any way to contact storm8 about this I'd like to know since they have limited support for the game. Because I love this game and the free gems option was the reason I kept playing because everything costs gems and the opportunity to watch 10 videos a day was a life saver. If I don't see the option in the next 2 weeks I just might abort the game