The year is 2018. School is canceled because there is a foot of snow outside. I wake up and immediately turn on my PlayStation and load into Fortnite. When I load in, all of my friends are waiting for me in the lobby. I have a mug of hot chocolate next to me and I’m feeling at peace.

However, amid the tranquility is one thought: “One day, this won’t exist.” And well, I was right. As time goes on, video games have started to lose their magic.

One of the biggest reasons gaming has taken a backseat for me is simply finding time for it. In high school, as soon as I got home and all my homework was done, I could hop right on my PlayStation. Weekends were practically holidays for me, as all of my friends were online and playing games together, whether it be the latest Call of Duty or sports games such as the NBA 2K series.

Since then, I have assumed new responsibilities. When I have so much on my plate, gaming has to be put to the side. All of a sudden, work keeps piling up and I don’t play video games at all for a couple of weeks. Even when I do find the time, gaming is simply not the same. I can’t help but miss what gaming used to be.

I grew up playing mostly sports games with the occasional shooter or racing game with my brother. I still remember my first time beating him in a video game. It was NBA Live 10 and Dwight Howard had 72 points. Thank you Howard for such a priceless memory.

Then once my brother moved off to college, I still spent a lot of my time playing video games. Although it sucked to play alone, I still had a lot of fun. NBA 2K17 was released and I played it non-stop by myself, which was surprisingly comforting at times.

Once I got to high school, I made friends who just so happened to play all the games I played and also had PlayStations. This was the golden era of gaming for me. Everyday, when I got home from school, I was hopping on a game with my friends. When Fortnite started to gain popularity, we all decided to try it out. Eventually, it became our go-to game.

I played Fortnite for the first time about five years ago and since then, the game has undergone a plethora of changes that have me missing how things used to be. I miss when nobody knew how to build and there were only a few weapons you could choose from.

Now it’s so much different and although it can still be fun to play, it’s not as simple to just get on and play as I get older. Trying to orchestrate a gaming session with friends now should be an olympic sport. Everyone has different schedules, responsibilities and jobs that it becomes impossible to coordinate.

There is still some joy in playing single-player, but nothing beats playing with friends. All of the gaming I do while I’m at school is by myself because I don’t really have any other options. MLB The Show 23’s early access period released on March 24 and while I have enjoyed playing thus far, I’m not quite optimistic that I will continue to have fun throughout the game cycle.

There is so much content out and I usually love grinding in Diamond Dynasty, the team building game mode, but for the past couple years things have been different. While the rewards for playing are great, I simply don’t have the time to complete all of it.

The game, and many others like it, feels built for high school kids who can afford to spend hours on end playing a video game. Well, I simply can’t do that anymore and as time goes by, I’m missing the days that I could.

While playing video games still has its merits, every time I turn on my console I reminisce on the good old days. I can still find happiness in gaming, but it’s often overshadowed by the power of nostalgia.