The devs really need to make an official post about what is happening here, because I see people have this impression a lot.
What happened was never intended to be a nerf, at least not on PC/Mobile. The spawner influencing code has been in for over two years now on PC/Mobile. When they redid the code for the Unity port (since Console never had it before), the code was inverted, basically moving the opposite of how it should have and moved gems toward each other instead of away. It was also readily apparent that the code was active far more often than previously divulged information would have led us to believe, as any extra turn, whether it was from a swipe, converter, or spawner, would cause visible and documented evidence. When they fixed the inversion, things still didn’t feel right. Devs say the code is statistically where it should be to be in line with previous version, most players say it is still far more unreliable. I believe impressions have been colored so strongly by the week that spawners were auto-linking plus the now more widespread knowledge that they are messing with them that it is coloring everyones opinions on how reliable they were in the past. To me, they have always been hugely unreliable until spawning 9 on a decent board, which is about a 50/50 coin flip, and getting slightly more reliable the more gems you spawn (with having more gems of that color on the board to begin with past a certain point mattering far less than how many were created). They can sometimes still “feel” worse now, but whether they actually are is a matter that is still up for debate, and other Unity changes, like more generous mana calculation and streakier cascades could be contributing, as a “critical miss” will cost you a lot more even if the enemy doesn’t use the mana color you are creating at all.
Here is the thread I made about discussing what is happening with gem spawners, with a poll for how people feel about them: