>In choosing between learning Haskell or learning 3d programming...

This is a false dichotomy: https://wiki.haskell.org/Game_Development

As the linked response from Rich Hickey pointed out, you can do anything in any (Turing complete) language.

I agree with the notion behind your decision to focus on real results though. I think that is actually closer to the mastery part of the progression from beginner to master. I think when one can deeply realize that programming is just a tool to achieve other things, then one is leaning towards the mastery end of the scale.

That's not a hard rule though, I think part of the problem we all have discussing this sort of thing is that we have a hard time consistently measuring where a person is on that progression.