it was during a time period where nvidia bought out aegia and was pressuring devs to use physx. the glass shattering physics was one of its effects, as it was easier to show off your gpus performance by gimping competition at the time.
that's why there was a short window where the 5090 was slower than the 980ti. nvidia was nerfing future nvidia because at the time, nvidia wanted to stop supporting physx on latest gpus