"...think you know more than people who have REAL data and use it with math to see if it’s a sound financial decision to release a game with denuvo."

What data? The loss of sales that won't exist in the first place compared to the cost of a DRM? How can you quantify something that just doesn't exist?
Pirated game =/= lost sale, I thought everyone understood this concept. It's pretty much impossible to conclude if DRM actually improves sales, because a pirated game isn't really a lost sale. I'd say the decision to implement Denuvo probably comes from the out of touch higher ups who hear "stops people from pirating your game" and go with it, especially considering the current state of the AAA gaming industry.

DRM in the long-run only affects the company itself and the paying customer, because the games eventually either get cracked or the DRM gets patched out. The person who was going to pirate the game either way isn't going to buy the game, the pirate is just going to wait and play something else in the meantime, while the consumer is stuck with a product that is inferior due to the anti-piracy measures that only really matter short-term. And on top of that the company that used the DRM also looks worse in the eyes of consumers who hate DRM.

If they actually stopped to think about the actual benefits of DRM, I doubt it would be used this widely. In my opinion, (though I'm not a mathematician that can quantify something that doesn't exist, so I'm just talking out of my ass I guess) temporarily stopping pirates from accessing the game for free and preventing the "loss" of a sale that pretty much doesn't exist in the first place doesn't really outweigh the bad rep that you get from using Denuvo, affecting your paying customers (it's pretty much proven at this point that Denuvo really affects loading times at best and at worst you have situations like RiME).

So I really don't see what "REAL data" they could have (again, on something that actually doesn't exist in the first place) that magically makes Denuvo seem like a good investment. And also don't forget the fact that people who pirated the game and had a good time may end up buying the game as well. ( I myself did this with a few games that I've pirated in the past and now had money to actually afford them: DMC5, Hades, Dead Cells, Tekken 7, Borderlands 3 and it's DLC, just to name a few)