Yes they gain awareness, but for all the wrong reasons - it helps raise one of their biggest weaknesses, that is, if they go under you lose all the games you purchased (the fact that they're DRM free helps alleviate this somewhat, but not fully). It associates them with failure, and makes people reluctant to trust them. When you're a tiny company in comparison to something like steam that's a very dangerous route to take.
It's conceivable the number of people who find out about it as a result of this and are able to overcome those worries outweighs the number of existing customers (and future customers had no stunt been done) who decide not to use them as a result, but I'd be surprised if that was the case.
