And if Denuovo actually helps sales is not an easy question to answer since no publisher has come out and said it (that I’ve seen).
The premise seems sound enough, sales follow an “inverse hockey stick”, so design DRM meant to delay cracking instead of stop it and you can get more time with maximum interest and sales, with no easy piracy options.
A few times it’s fallen in hours, and pirates started to write it off, but just recently Far Cry 5's implementation lasted weeks, which seems to be what they’re going for (some versions even lasted months on end).
One could argue no pirates would buy instead of wait, and one could argue all pirates would buy instead of wait, but both would be wrong and the truth is somewhere in the middle, publishers have evaluated that question and apparently the answer is something they like enough to keep shaving margins for