If you're busy working down to the tech, you'll never do that to which the tech should aspire. By the time anybody can truly say they've mastered 3D character animation, the tech will be able to display in real time anything the artist can envision, and it will go by so fast, in such high resolution that they'll be able to see everything you did or didn't do right. Getting your sleeves rolled up into the nuts and bolts of what makes CG happen at all is always valuable experience. Get real, some things have actually been invented already and are readily available. A failure of management and business plan does not mandate a waste of my time and energy.
Some people live for games, and riding that real time edge like surfing a curl.
They thrive on getting that cool thing to happen fast, and look good, and feel good as an element in play. I have plenty of respect for that, it isn't easy, and it takes as much dedication and energy and sweat as it takes to animate. Constraints and limitations can define a medium, so choose them carefully. I'm an animator first, and nobody I know is making the kind of games I want to play. So I'll dispense with real-time rather than animation, because it is within my means to do so.