I was reading parts of Unwired last night and I stumbled upon the General Program Option called Limitation. It basically limits a program to only be effective against certain constructs. So, you could have an Attack 5 (Limited: IC) program that was only usable against IC. Or perhaps a Browse 6 (Limited: Ares Nodes) program that the corp uses that is only able to function under an Ares node.

Anyways, my issue that I need help on is, what's the advantage to adding this on a program? Looking at the cost chart, its cost 100 nuyen per rating to add it to an existing program. So, why would a player do this?

As a GM, I can see handing out limited programs quite a bit. But looking at it from a character perspective, my initial assumption was that it would either reduce the cost of the base program (as it is limited) or there would be a bonus or some advantage to using it.

So, am I missing something or is this really just relegated the GM usage/flavor and a way to limit program access in a stolen commlink?

i recall that back in SR3 and older, the limitation option would make the program take up less space in storage and ram...

but given how its described in unwired, it seem to be more of a gm tool then a player tool, this time round...

Fine, go ahead and say what I was going to say.

Use it as loot prevention. Capture a commlink, but its only good on these nodes. D R M.

BlueMax
/only after you sign my EULA

Hmmm...that's the path of logic I was going down as well. Mostly a GMing tool and can be used as loot prevention.

I am considering taking the +100 nuyen per rating and subtracting that from the cost of the program. I doubt that would be very unbalanced.

From a criminal hacker perspective Limitation is a viable option for viral warfare. Creating a virus which implants the limitation option into other programs would allow you to protect yourself on a node you've already breached or could be seeded via Vector trojans prior to you exploiting a node.
RAW gives some scope for creating your own viruses, and applying the principle of 'if I can do it, so can they' it should be able to be found on a malware Warez site.

That would be a nasty bait and switch option: have a hacker get into an Ares node, finds the pay data, activate it, its a high level Trojan which infects his analyse, and hacking programs with a limitation Not Ares, and watch his frustration as all of his attempts to interact with the attacking IC fails. You could be kind and have him take a Hacking+Logic test to see if he realises the cause of his misfortune. Have him run a purge, in combat, before he can fight his way out.

Imp

I quite Like this... and have been contemplating its use as an offensive tactic for hacking...