This is not really an answer to the original topic, but my experiences with GTA when I was younger.
The only reason why I wanted GTA as a kid was to drive a car in a city. I think I got GTA VC when I was 11, my first GTA game. All I ever did was drive around and install car mods. I always wanted to drive in real life but couldn't until I was older. And while racing games were fun, sometimes I wanted to do 'realistic' driving in a city. To this day, I don't think there is any real life driving simulator besides 'City Car Driving.' I guess there's TDU, but I only heard about it much later, and it still focuses on racing.
At that age I knew GTA was violent and you could kill people, but that wasn't the reason I wanted it. I didn't know about pornography, prostitution, drugs, alcohol, organized crime, and everything else the series represents, so it did not affect me. Despite my username, I am actually not a fan of war/shooting games besides the GTA series.
Only as I got older I realized there was a story, and a pretty good one at that, which got me hooked to the series.