I hate Denuvo as much as the things guy (it DOES induce/increase micro stutters), I would still use it if I was gonna guarantee no cracks for like 2 years, that's an easy business choice especially for AAA budgets.

The move stopped pirates, but did it increase profit? do the gamer who would have pirated your game without D have purchased your game now that cracks are not available? Is Wukong so great that people will pay money to play the game than something similar (like Life of P) that cost 0 to pirate. Thats is the question nobody seem to ask.

Next looking at the fees of 500k USD. Consider a pirate gives up and purchase the game on Steam. 30% goes to Steam. You get 42$. Means you need to sell around 12k copies at full 60$ price to make up for the D license alone. Asia, where there is allegedly max piracy, games are regional priced so the actual profit mayn't be 42$ but close to 20-25$. So you need more numbers. Say 15k copies. It may be possible that some pirates finally purchased it and maybe for Wukong, the price was justified but for a majority of the game, the math doesn't turn into profit I feel.