I seem to remember a lot of hype about room-temperature superconductors, that croaked upon [lack of] replication. That wasn't too long ago.

Before that, cold fusion.

We still have the ion drive that doesn't require fuel. I don't think it has ever been successfully replicated, but I think that it also hasn't been successfully repudiated, either.

This kind of thing has been going on for a long time. I suspect that not all of it is deliberate fraud, but rather, people wanting their preconceived bias to be satisfied.

Then it "replication" becomes a target and thus would be gamed instead.

This is a constant tug of war..

No, that would never happen. People would just be skeptical of most findings until they see replications (where we are headed in the social sciences, anyway). If people see replications the original discoverer will get all the accolades, not the (several) replications.