The non-profit National Geographic Society will soon start its for-profit company National Geographic Ventures and will create video games with geography themes.

National Geographic Society will make this announcement today and will create National Geographic Games soon.

They have developed the first game called “Herod’s Lost Tomb” within the company itself and is available for free for PC, Mac and iPhone users. They will also produce games for Wii, Xbox and Playstation in the future.

National Geographic Games will create these games either in-house or in partnership with others like Namco Bandai and Sony. They will create “National Geographic Panda” with Namco and “National Geographic Africa” with Sony.

They have hired Chris Mate, who previously worked for Take-Two Interactive Software and Bethesda Softworks. Mate will be named the General Manager for the new company.

National Geographic Society's main emphasis however will be to spread geography to the public.

You can play the "Herold's Lost Tomb" game at National Geographic Games link.