Would it be possible to juggle these two jobs?

[Chronitis]

Hello. I'm currently in school and was wondering if it is possible for someone to be both an animator as well as a game designer?

I don't think it's possible to do both full time and all of that, but is it possible to have both these types of jobs?

[ahkwardkat]

If you mean time wise, it depends on if you are full time or part time.

Legally, maybe not. A lot of companies have employees, even contracted ones, work under a non-competition clause. It means you cannot work for the competition. The company you work for chooses what other companies are or are not competition.

So the answer is maybe, depends on who you work for.

[60Six]

Companies like employees who can wear multiple hats, and when you're in a small indie studio, there's a good chance you might do more than one job. However, a triple A game company will most likely only have you focused on one job and it will be all you have time for (speaking from experience).
That said though... a game designer tends to be a bit of a higher up job? One they don't just hire someone right out of school for and you have to work your way up to. Animators are often recent grads and interns, so maybe use that to get your foot into a company and work your way up to game designer? Because a company is rarely gonna ever hire a game designer right out of school, but there's probably opportunities for new animators.

[XzynderVexymous]

Yes. But both those things take an EXTREME amount of time. I know this from experience. You will not have time for a lot of other things.Try it out, but be prepared to work your butt off.

[ratique]

If that is what you want to do, your target should be to work for small companies, like @60Six mentioned. With fewer employees at hand, being able to do multiple things is extremely helpful. I myself have worked as a graphic designer and illustrator for many companies.

You can build two portfolios when going into the job hunt. Both should be great of course. When arriving at an interview, being able to mention your additional abilities can be a plus for certain companies.

There is a downside too: Being unfocused. I have met many who want to do a lot of things, but don't do any of them well. It can make people feel like you don't know what you want in your career. That is a huge problem for an employer, usually resulting in not hiring a candidate.

You are in school still and I'm guessing you are interested in both jobs. Go ahead and pursue studying both then, that is what school is for. It is very possible that after a couple months or years working on various projects you realize where your passion truly lies. And if it is both animation and game design, that's fine too.

[gateofselidor]

I work in the games industry, and having both of those skills certainly won't hurt your chances, and it will help you work with people from a variety of disciplines, but I wouldn't expect to be doing both at once unless you're on a tiny team working out of someone's bedroom or taking part in a game jam.

In all likelihood, you'll end up sticking to one of them more than the other anyway, because you need experience to progress through your career, and it's hard to gather that experience switching between two very different roles. Try them both - maybe you'll find one of them is more satisfying as a job, or has more opportunities. I know someone who trained as an animator and now has a successful career as a producer.

[Chronitis]

Thanks for the advice and information. It's just that I have so many ideas I feel as though I'm drowning in them and just want to express them in a art form that respects how I want this visions to be represented.

[gateofselidor]

It sounds like what you want is to make your own games. Your teachers may have told you this already, but ideas are cheap in the games industry. Every single person working in it has ideas for games they want to make, so if you want your ideas made, you have to work your way to the top and earn the experience and reputation that will make people listen to you. Or start your own studio and pay other people to make your ideas a reality. Even then, you have to find a way to fund the game, which typically involves pitching it to publishers who may reject the idea or require huge changes. If you can source the funding, making it will be a collaborative process, which means lots of other people will be contributing their own thoughts about the project and gradually changing it into something that will probably be very different from the initial pitch.

The alternative is to teach yourself multiple disciplines in your free time and just make them by yourself. This obviously doesn't work for a something really ambitious that would need a AAA budget to pull off, but for simpler ideas it's very possible. It just takes a lot of time and dedication (not unlike a webcomic, but more complex).

[Chronitis]

I get what you mean by having to work your way up in the industry. But I heard that Nintendo is starting to let their younger developers pitch ideas. Splatoon and Mario Odyssey were, and are being made by a young team.