Colab is effectively JupyterLab/JupyterHub with Google's own add-ins (like integration with Google Drive). JupyterHub is a huge PITA to manage, and Colab also offers a degree of free compute and limited access to a dated, but still free K80 GPU.
From the tweet thread, it seems like there was some misunderstanding over where the files are being stored and being executed. This is a pretty common issue with Google Drive. I.e. if someone shares a file with me, and I copy it to a folder, it's just a pointer to the original file. Only after clicking "Add to My Drive" does it count against my storage allocation, and only then is it a distinct copy.
My guess is that the researchers expected each user to be able to run the game in their own personal free Colab environment, not be running it against the university's compute and storage budget.
From the tweet thread, it seems like there was some misunderstanding over where the files are being stored and being executed. This is a pretty common issue with Google Drive. I.e. if someone shares a file with me, and I copy it to a folder, it's just a pointer to the original file. Only after clicking "Add to My Drive" does it count against my storage allocation, and only then is it a distinct copy.
My guess is that the researchers expected each user to be able to run the game in their own personal free Colab environment, not be running it against the university's compute and storage budget.